He presented himself as the only candidate who could terminate the agreement with Pfizer to deliver millions of vaccines early, and boasts of his personal appeals to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who as a son of Holocaust survivors very well was related to Israel.
Mr Netanyahu even mailed a clip from ‘South Park’, the American animated sitcom, acknowledging Israel’s sovereignty.
According to experts, his claim is that the virus in the rearview mirror is too optimistic.
Just a few months ago, Israel’s daily infection rates and mortality rates were among the worst in the world. By February, Israel was also the leader in the world in terms of the number of closing days. About two million Israelis under the age of 16 are so far unable to be vaccinated, and about one million eligible citizens have so far chosen not to do so.
With a large proportion of the adult population now vaccinated, the infection rates were weekly drops dramatically. But there are still more than 1,000 new cases per day, an infection rate that, adapted to the population, remains higher than that of the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Spain and others.
Health officials have approved the reopening of businesses and leisure activities. But they sharply criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling this week on lifting the quota on airport arrivals, in part to allow Israeli citizens abroad to vote again.
“The Supreme Court takes responsibility for the risk of mutations entering Israel,” said Deputy Health Minister Yoav Kish. wrote on Twitter. “Good luck to all of us.”
Critics blame the government for failing to put in place a reliable system of quarantine for people entering the country, and health experts warn they could introduce dangerous variants of the vaccine-resistant virus.