Israel surpasses many other countries in vaccinating the population against COVID-19, an extraordinary achievement praised by public health experts at home and abroad, which could more quickly drive it to coveted herd immunity than almost any nation.
But Israel is also being criticized for leaving the nearly 5 million Palestinians under its control in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who are expected to wait significantly longer for mass vaccination.
In less than three weeks, Israel vaccinated nearly 15% of its 9.3 million people with the first of two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which dramatically surpassed the rollout in the United States and much of Europe, exceeding the population size regards. By comparison, the US rate hangs below 1.5%, according to data compiled by an Oxford University vaccination tracking website.
With more than 150,000 people being vaccinated daily in Israel, the groups favored to be vaccinated – health workers and citizens over the age of 60 – are expected to receive their second shots by the end of January, even if the country receives a wild new wave of infections.
The much-vaunted explosion of the vaccine could enable Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand for re-election while on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, to improve his faltering poll numbers and to put down harsh criticism of his overall management of the pandemic response. The prime minister was the first in the country to receive the vaccine, exposing his arm on live television last month and encouraging others to take the chance.
With the March election ahead, the initial effectiveness of the Netanyahu vaccine campaign already offers the chance to maintain the prospect of a faster economic recovery. On Monday, the Bank of Israel issued a better evaluation of the country’s outlook for 2021, which predicted that the economy would shrink by less than 4%, instead of its initial estimate of 6%, if the rapid pace of vaccination was maintained. word.
The country’s long-established, highly digitalized national health care system, along with the small size of Israel and its technological skills, receives much of the credit for its early success. By law, every Israeli citizen must register with one of four health care organizations, which are heavily subsidized by the government.
Public health, from vaccinations to early childhood to elderly care, is based on a network of community clinics found in almost every Israeli environment. This socialized system has decades of experience with outreach and logistics, and there is an existing national vaccine registry initially set up to detect common vaccinations in children.
Another important factor in the initial vaccination campaign was aggressive procurement. When Pfizer became the first manufacturer to confirm the effectiveness of the vaccine, it was reported that Israel paid up to double the price paid by European countries, and up to three times the price paid by the United States, for a estimated to deliver 8 million initial doses.
Netanyahu’s administration has also secured preliminary agreements with vaccine manufacturers Moderna and AstraZeneca, with the first doses of the Moderna vaccine expected to start within two weeks.
However, Israel’s rapid, high-efficiency vaccine regime does not extend to the Occupied West Bank, where about 3 million Palestinians live, or to the Gaza Strip, home to another 2 million Palestinians, who are blocked by Israel and Egypt.
Israel rejects the view expressed by some aid groups that it is responsible for civilian populations under its control, saying that the peace agreements of the 1990s have a duty to provide health care, even in an emergency for public health, to Palestinian officials.
A consortium of 15 Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations has called on Israel to ensure that vaccines that meet the strict standards of the Israeli health system are obtained as soon as possible and delivered to Palestinian states.
Israeli officials said some remaining vaccine doses could be donated, but no formal plans existed. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Israel was the primary responsibility to its own citizens, but some argued that it bore additional moral and perhaps legal responsibilities.
“I am so proud of how well our HMOs have provided vaccinations to Israelis, including the Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of occupied East Jerusalem,” Israeli lawyer and activist Daniel Seidemann said in an online report. At the same time, he said: “I am so ashamed of how we have failed to deliver vaccinations to the Palestinians we occupy in the West Bank and Gaza.”
Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, who make up about a fifth of the population, have been included in the national vaccination campaign. On New Year’s Day, Netanyahu and other officials traveled to the predominantly Arab city of Umm al Fahm, in northern Israel, for a news conference marking the millionth vaccination.
Jewish settlers living in the West Bank receive vaccines as part of the Israeli government, while Palestinians in neighboring towns do not. Palestinian officials hope to begin vaccinations next month, though the effort is likely to be much slower than on the Israeli side.
A few Palestinians on the West Bank working across the border are receiving the vaccine. Walid Nammour, chief executive of Augusta Victoria, one of the six main hospitals in East Jerusalem, said 70% of its staff would be vaccinated by Thursday. He says that 9 out of 10 come from the West Bank.
Nammour described the Israeli approach as short-sighted because so many Israelis and Palestinians live or work nearby.
“It does not help Israel, because if everyone in Israel is vaccinated and Palestinians in the West Bank, the pandemic will not be controlled,” he said.
Along with the rapid explosion of the vaccine, Israel is facing new restrictions aimed at becoming a major new outbreak of coronavirus cases. The number of infections in Israel exceeded 450,000, with more than 3,400 deaths.
The government is ready to approve a fourth national exclusion, which will keep people in their homes, close schools and workplaces and paralyze the economy again. Israel complicates more than thirty cases of individuals infected by the potentially more contagious strain of the coronavirus first identified in Britain.
“The rate of infection is catastrophic,” said Health Minister Edelstein.
However, some experts have said that the fear that they could catch the virus could help dispel any doubts among vaccine skeptics, which could further promote the vaccination paradoxically.
“When infection is high, people are motivated to take the vaccines,” says Dr. Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist at the Hebrew University and chairman of the Israeli Assn. of doctors for public health. “Fewer people think, ‘This is not going to happen to me.’ ‘
Tarnopolsky is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Laura King in Washington contributed to this report.