Israel began administering Covid-19 vaccines to teenagers on Saturday as it moved on with its vaccination campaign, with 30 percent of the population now receiving the first dose, health officials said.
Since the launch of the vaccination a month ago, more than 2.5 million of Israel’s nine million inhabitants have been vaccinated, the health ministry said on Friday.
The expansion of the campaign to include teenagers came days after Israel extended its third national coronavirus block on Tuesday until the end of the month due to an increase in coronavirus infections.
The health ministry announced on Thursday that it was allowing high school students aged 16 to 18 to be inoculated, subject to parental approval.
Or, an 18-year-old teenager receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine at Clalit Health Services in Israel’s coastal city of Tel Aviv, January 23.
The country’s largest health fund, Clalit, was already giving vaccines to teenagers on Saturday morning, its website said, while the three smaller funds were due to start their campaign later.
Israel began administering the vaccines on December 20, starting with health professionals and moving quickly to groups of elderly, sick and at risk, continually reducing the minimum age of those entitled to the vaccine.
Starting on Saturday, people aged 40 and over can also get the vaccine.
According to the Ministry of Health, as of Friday, almost 2.5 million people have received the first of the two doses, 900,000 of which have also received the second.
Israel gave 38.8 per 100 people in the country at least one dose of the vaccine, well ahead of other countries, with some people already receiving the second.
In comparison, the UK administered 8.9 first doses per 100 people, the US administered 5.8, with France administering only 1.4.
Israel is currently leading the global vaccination campaign, with nearly 39 percent of its citizens having received at least a single dose of a vaccine so far. In comparison, the UK administered 8.9 first doses per 100 people, the US administered 5.8, with France administering only 1.4
The country secured a large stock of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and pledged to share the impact data quickly with the German-American manufacturer.
On Thursday, the estimated number of reproductions of COVID-19 in Israel fell below 1 for the first time since the country launched its vaccination campaign, the government announced.
An ‘R’ number above 1 indicates that infections will grow at an exponential rate, while below 1 indicates their eventual stop.
Israel’s ‘R’ number reached 1.3 on December 11. The country started vaccinating citizens the following week. With contagion rising, on December 27 he imposed a third national blockade – which is still in effect.
‘Are we seeing the light? We see a crack in the curtains, ‘Deputy Health Minister Yoav Kisch told Channel 13 TV after Israel recorded an’ R ‘number of 0.99. ‘We managed to stop, but we managed to stop at high levels of morbidity.’
A health worker prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine at Clalit Health Services in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, Israel, on January 23.
He credited the blockade and vaccines – now administered to more than a quarter of Israel’s 9 million population – but added that vaccines ‘mainly reduced severe morbidity, not necessarily the number of carriers’.
The reduction would have been more significant had it not been for the particularly contagious British variant of the coronavirus, Kisch said.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the rapid vaccination campaign “will give us the possibility to overcome the coronavirus, to get out of it, to open up the economy and make life go back to routine”.
But while Israel is currently leading the global increase in vaccination, rates of infection and mortality, as well as the number of people hospitalized, have shown little sign of declining.
Wednesday saw the country record its highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in a single day, with 10,213 cases and 101 deaths – the first time Israel has seen more than 10,000 cases and 100 deaths since the pandemic began.
On Thursday, of the 82,930 active cases, 1,918 were hospitalized. Last week, the number of hospitalizations was just over 1,000.
On Friday, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, said it was too early to draw conclusions from Israel’s vaccination campaign, following the alarm that hospitalizations have not yet subsided.
Addressing the vaccine regime’s apparent failure to reduce infection rates, Israel’s top coronavirus doctor said on Wednesday that the Pfizer vaccine was less effective than expected.
Real-world data from Israel’s worldwide launch showed that the first dose led to a 33 percent reduction in coronavirus cases between 14 and 21 days later in people who received the injection.
The number is lower than the British regulator’s estimate, which said it could prevent 89 percent of recipients from acquiring Covid-19 symptoms.
Dr Nachman Ash, the main coronavirus doctor in Israel, said on Wednesday that the Pfizer vaccine was less effective than expected
Sir Patrick Vallance said on Friday that it is too early to draw conclusions from Israel’s vaccination campaign after the alarm that hospitalizations have not yet subsided
But Sir Patrick, the UK’s top scientific adviser, said at the Downing Street press conference on Friday that the Israeli data was “very preliminary”.
He said: ‘In terms of Israeli data, I think it was information from one of the organizations that organize health in Israel, I think there are four, and it was preliminary data that came out about the numbers.
“I think the Israeli health ministry said it’s not sure if these are the final data and that it expects the effects to increase, so I think it’s very preliminary.
‘This is preliminary information for a subset of people, they have not followed it long enough.
‘We spoke with Israeli advisers yesterday and they hope to obtain more information in the coming weeks.
‘And I think we will have to monitor this very carefully, we will have to continue looking at the data and understanding the performance of vaccines in the real world.’
Dr. Nachman Ash, one of the doctors who led Covid-19’s response in Israel, told local media on Army Radio earlier this week: ‘Many people were infected between the first and second injections of the vaccine.’
Immunity can take 10 days or more to take effect.