Pfizer senior officials said they were concerned that the government in transition would not pay and that the company did not want to take advantage of it. They said they did not understand how such a situation could occur in an organized country.
Army Radio reports that Pfizer calls Israel a ‘banana republic’.
A shipment of 700,000 doses was expected to arrive in Israel on Sunday, but was postponed until further notice.
Pfizer told the Post that the company had completed all deliveries to Israel under its initial agreement to supply its COVID-19 vaccine, which was signed in November 2020.
“The company is currently working with the Israeli government to update the agreement, to supply additional vaccines to the country. While this work continues, the shipment could possibly be adjusted,” the company said in a statement.
The Ministry of Health declined to comment on the statement.
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The Post was informed that the government had never paid the last 2.5 million.
So far, Israel has spent NIS 2.6 billion on coronavirus vaccines, it announced at a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee last month. In general, the government does not discuss the cost of vaccines due to confidentiality agreements with the companies. It is understood that Israel has paid far more per dose than any other country.
The Ministry of Health has put pressure on the government to approve the purchase of another 3.5 billion NIS (more than 30 million vaccines), and the government would meet last Monday. However, the meeting was adjourned indefinitely due to a conflict between Netanyahu and Prime Minister Benny Gantz.
Gantz canceled the meeting due to Netanyahu’s refusal to approve the permanent appointment of a justice minister. His term as acting Minister of Justice ended on April 2, three months after he took office in place of Avi Nissenkorn, who resigned.
A permanent appointment has not yet been made.
HEALTH MINISTER Yuli Edelstein spoke to Gantz on Sunday night to try to convince him of the importance of continuing with the payment and purchase.
A Gantz spokesman told the Post that “although the prime minister has done much to undermine the functioning of the government,” the alternate prime minister will “do nothing that will affect the people of Israel by denying the vaccines.” ‘
Nevertheless, sources in Gantz’s office stressed that if this meeting is so urgent for Edelstein, “he just needs to call Prime Minister Netanyahu and ask him to appoint a justice minister.”
Gantz’s office further claimed that the purchase of the 2.5 million vaccines had already been approved and that any delay in payment was on behalf of the Ministry of Health.
The source said that the country had already bought 27 million doses – including the vaccines Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca – “which would be sufficient for the near future.” The source said obtaining additional vaccines further down the line requires proper process and deliberation.
Meanwhile, health officials are worried that Israel will miss its chance to buy the vaccines, which are sought after by countries around the world.
Prof. Nachman Ash, commissioner of the Coronavirus, told the Post that if Israel did not sign the necessary contracts quickly, he might not be able to vaccinate his children or give civilians to give shots against vaccine-resistant variants, or if immunity declines.
“There is real competition to buy vaccines from countries around the world,” Ash said in an interview last week. ‘We want to keep our place at the top of the list and not be pushed to the end so we can not get it [vaccines] when it is most necessary. ”
PFIZER ANNOUNCED that the vaccine is safe and effective against the virus for children in this age group, and is now seeking FDA approval. Health Ministry Director-General Chezy Levy said at the weekend that Israeli adolescents could be vaccinated as early as May.
The vaccination campaign has enabled Israel to open up its economy over the past month, including sending more children to school on Monday.
The Ministry of Health has agreed to allow children in the third grade to learn without capsules. Older students are still sitting in capsules, which means they still cannot go to school full time.
Ash told Ynet that the ministry wants to monitor whether there is an increase in infection after capsules in the third grade were removed. If not, the rest of the country’s primary school pupils can study fully within the next two weeks.
The ministry said it wanted to introduce a rapid testing for high school students before they could learn in their regular classrooms.
The Ministry of Health reported on Monday that the number of patients in serious condition is still declining and that only 0.6% of the tests performed the previous day yielded a positive result, which was the lowest percentage since May 2020. At the same time, the rate rose to 0.71 – a figure that was not recorded for a month.
About 195 new coronavirus cases were identified on Sunday out of 32,886 tested.
Although Israel consistently performs fewer tests on Sundays than on other weekdays, the rate of positive tests has been the lowest since May last year.
In addition, the number of serious patients dropped to 323. They were 441 the previous Monday and 543 the week before.
Some 6,245 people have died in Israel since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The government is expected to convene a special cabinet meeting in the coming days on the vaccines. Sources in the Ministry of Health say they hope it will not be too late.