The Director-General of the Ministry of Health, Prof. Hezi Levi on Wednesday instructed Israel’s four health funds to start vaccinating anyone aged 35 and over, starting on Thursday. The country was already vaccinating anyone over 40.
Two of the health funds, Clalit and Meuhedet, started vaccinating young people last week, without waiting for government approval. Levi ordered both funds to stop these vaccines immediately.
Israelis in line to receive coronavirus vaccine in Tel Aviv
(Photo: Moti Kimchi)
The country also started on Sunday to vaccinate 11th and 12th graders aged 17 and 18 to allow them to take entrance exams without fear of infection.
Pregnant women were also encouraged to get vaccinated because of concerns that new strains of the virus pose a greater threat to them.
Israel began what became the world’s fastest per capita distribution of vaccines against the new coronavirus on December 19, using the injection developed by the American company Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech.
On Tuesday, the government said the vaccines were proving highly effective, with Israel not seeing a single serious case of COVID-19 among the more than 6% of the population who received both doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Israel started vaccinating 11th and 12th graders so they can take their enrollment exams without fear of infection
(Photos: Moti Kimchi, AFP)
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told lawmakers on Tuesday that he did not know of “any serious morbidity” among Israelis eligible for the “green passport” issued by the state a week after the second dose is administered, when Pfizer says that the vaccine is 95% effective.
Edelstein said that 0.014% of the nearly half a million people who received both doses of the vaccine contracted milder forms of COVID-19.
The minister also said that 80% of Israelis at risk were vaccinated, with 252,000 waiting to be vaccinated.
A man is inoculated against coronavirus at a Maccabi HMO vaccination site in the central city of Givatayim
(Photo: Reuters)
Even so, the country still struggles to contain the spread of the virus among the general population. Edelstein also warned on Tuesday that new infections and hospitalizations for serious or critical COVID complications have reached record numbers.
The Ministry of Health said on Wednesday night that 4,778 people had tested positive for coronavirus in Israel since midnight, bringing the number of active cases in the country to 74,785.
A total of 52,500 tests have been performed since midnight, resulting in an infection rate of 9.1% – a slight reduction since Tuesday.
Israel has seen 4,574 people succumb to COVID-19. Just over 25% of that total – 1,211 people – have died since the beginning of January.
The country also has 1,160 patients with viruses hospitalized in serious condition.
A Herzliya nursing home resident receives the coronavirus vaccine
(Photo: Getty Images)
The Ministry of Health blames highly transmissible variants originating abroad for the setbacks in Israel’s attempt to stem the spread of the virus.
A week after the vaccination began, he imposed his third national blockade, which, according to authorities, may need to be extended after the January 31 expiration date.
But last Thursday, he reported a reproduction number – known as “R” – of less than 1, indicating that the epidemic is no longer growing.
Reuters contributed to this report