Israel on Friday became the first country to supply the first dose of coronavirus vaccine to 10 percent of its population. With another 153,000 people vaccinated in 325 places on Thursday, about 950,000 were vaccinated by Friday morning, the Ministry of Health said – or 1 in 10 Israelis in a country of 9.3 million.
“Yesterday we broke a new record and vaccinated 153,430 people,” Health Minister Edelstein said in a statement, thanking medical teams for their work. “Today we succeed one million.”
The statistics from the website Our World in Data operated by the University of Oxford have so far far surpassed the other Jewish state. Second place is held by Bahrain with 3.37%, followed by the United Kingdom with 1.39% (although the latter’s data is a few days old). The US stands at 0.84%.
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Israel began vaccination on December 20, focusing on health workers and then on more than 60-year-olds and at-risk sectors.
The global leading vaccination process is attributed to various factors, including the relatively small but densely populated population and highly professional, community-integrated health services.
Related: Little wonder: how Israel rolls up its sleeves and becomes a vaccination country
Next week, a large-scale vaccination center will be opened in Tel Aviv’s famous Rabin Square and is aimed at vaccinating about 5,000 people a day, the city’s municipality said in a statement on Thursday.
The vaccination tent and 20 vaccination booths will be operated by Ichilov Hospital medical staff, starting with Tel Aviv residents over 60 and later to all Israeli citizens.
During the pandemic, Rabin Square was used as a COVID-19 test site, doing more than 1,500 tests a day. The test site is expected to continue next to the vaccination center even if it is vaccinated.
The campaign is currently using the Pfizer vaccine, which requires two shots, which are a few weeks apart. Although not yet available to the general public, the vaccination centers have also opened their doors to all people at the end of each day in an effort to ensure that vaccines available for immediate use do not go to waste. .
So far, about 41% of more than 60-year-olds have had their first shot, according to figures released Friday.
However, a shortage of injections means the ministry could be forced to freeze the campaign in January for two weeks. With the interruption, those who received the first dose may receive the second dose, but new first doses will not be given.
An IDF physician will be vaccinated against the COVID-19 coronavirus on 28 December 2020 at the medical center of the Tzrifin military base in Rishon Lezion. (JACK GUEZ / AFP)
Channel 12 News reported on Thursday that one million vaccines from the American biotechnology company Moderna will arrive in Israel next week rather than in March as previously agreed, which promotes the dwindling stock. However, the Ministry of Health said it did not have such information.
“We want to make it clear that from now on we have no more information about Moderna’s intention to increase the supply of millions of vaccines to Israel,” the ministry said in a statement.
Later, the network sources in Moderna quoted that they insisted that the shipment is ready and that it is only a matter of final approval. According to the report, Moderna officials were “surprised” by the ministry’s apparent denial.
Meanwhile, the director-general of the Ministry of Health said on Thursday that officials’ plan to start [vaccinating] under-60s next week. It obviously depends on the speed at which [healtcare providers] finished vaccination above 60s. ”
It was not clear how this statement was consistent with the threat of a shortfall.
As the vaccination program increased, infection rates also increased, leading to a third national exclusion that began Sunday.
Active cases rose to 45,373 on Friday, of which 678 were in serious condition, and the death toll increased by 13 to 3,338 overnight.
Daily infections have hit more than 5,000 in the past few days. They remained steady on Thursday with 5,804 cases confirmed and 5.7% of the tests were positive, similar to previous days. It was the fourth consecutive day with more than 5,500 confirmed cases.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel planned to vaccinate some 2.25 million Israelis out of a population of 9.3 million by the end of January.