LONDON – Israel is by far the world leader when it comes to vaccinating its population against COVID-19. Even as the country faces high infection rates and is in blockade, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bragged last week: “We will be the first country in the world to come out of the coronavirus.”
More than 20% of its population of 9.29 million has already received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which so far far exceeds vaccination rates in all other countries in the world.
Since the vaccine was approved, the country has acted quickly, mobilizing its emergency resources with great efficiency, but the vaccination program – led by Netanyahu himself – is not without controversy, since the 5 million Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank have been excluded since launch.
Emergency base
Israel has a strong standardized public health system and a relatively small population. The USA, in turn, has 64 health jurisdictions – each with its own rules and regulations – and the best vaccination rates per capita have been observed in areas with smaller populations.
Even so, the vaccination rate in Israel is impressive. Netanyahu announced on January 10 the goal to increase the rate of vaccinations to 170,000 daily, and said that 72% of people over 60 received the first dose. In March, he said, the government “would bring consignment after consignment and complete vaccination for the population over 16 in Israel.” Then, authorities will start vaccinating children under 16 if the research shows that it is safe. On Friday morning, 170,000 Israelis received their second booster dose – part of the two-dose regimen that the Pfizer vaccine requires.
“At the moment, we are in a powerful race between two events: the spread of the disease and the distribution of vaccines,” said Netanyahu. “We are ahead of the whole world in vaccines with the millions of vaccines we have brought. “
Israel’s frontline health professionals acted quickly to vaccinate this large number in a short period of time.
While most vaccinations are taking place outside hospitals in specialized centers, the team continues to work to vaccinate the population and treat the steady flow of patients with coronavirus.
At the Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, which has been administering vaccines for some time, the team is in an emergency condition to vaccinate as many as possible.
“It’s like a mission, I’m giving injections to my friends and colleagues,” Vicky Greenberg, the head nurse at the hospital’s surgical intensive care unit, told ABC News.
“I really hope that in a few months we can celebrate Pesach (Easter) with our families, not in Zoom as we did last year. I have to get married, so I have to do that in May. It should work until May. Patient after patient for eight, nine hours a day. “
Prof. Joseph Klausner, chief of surgery at Ichilov Hospital, described the initial success of Israel’s early vaccination program as a “combined effort”.
“On the one hand, it is a relatively small community in relation to the [United] States, for example, so it is much easier to get there, reach the population and get treatment there. But there was definitely some directed effort to achieve that. “
Dr. Dalit Salzer, another doctor at the hospital, told ABC News that she was “proud and excited” to be part of vaccination efforts at the start of a 26-hour shift.
The current CEO of the hospital is also the former COVID commissioner in Israel, Prof. Ronni Ganzu, who saw the challenges of leading a response to coronavirus at national and local levels. A strong public health system and multiple experiences of political and military crises helped mobilize the resources needed to vaccinate so many, so quickly.
“We understand that in a disaster, in an emergency, we have very little time to act,” Ganzu told ABC News. “And that is what we are really used to doing. We are trained to do this, the energy that they want to make to win the war, [we are] really looking forward to giving the vaccine to as many Israelis as possible ”.
Offers and data
The accelerated vaccination program occurs at a time when the country has the highest rates of infection and mortality due to COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. The country is in blockade until January 21, even during the implementation of mass vaccination, with 3,892 deaths from coronavirus and 533,026 confirmed cases by Friday, according to the Ministry of Health.
The controversial Israeli Prime Minister placed himself at the front and at the center of the success of the vaccination program. He was the first Israeli to receive a jab and, over the weekend, with the media, he received the second. Netanyahu is proud to have a close relationship with Pfizer President and CEO Albert Courla, whom he describes as a “friend”.
The duo has had 17 conversations since Jan. 17, Netanyahu said last Sunday. Israel will share with Pfizer and the world the statistical data that will help develop strategies to defeat the coronavirus, ”as part of the deal, said Netanyahu earlier this month.
“Pfizer and the Israeli Ministry of Health (MoH) have entered into a collaboration agreement to study the real-world impact of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine,” a Pfizer spokesman told ABC News.
“This project will bring together critical epidemiological information from the real world that will allow real-time monitoring of the evolution of the epidemic in Israel and will assess the potential of a vaccination program using the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to trigger indirect protection and stop viral transmission .
“While this project is being conducted in Israel, the knowledge gained will be applicable worldwide and we anticipate that it will allow governments to maximize the public health impact of their vaccination campaigns, determine the potential immunization rates necessary to stop transmission and ultimately helping to end the global pandemic COVID-19 ”.
A Politico report said that an unofficial instruction from officials on January 5 suggested that Israel was paying Pfizer $ 30 per person, more than what is paid by some other countries. A report by an Israeli broadcaster said the country spent $ 47 per person, or $ 23.50 per dose, according to the Times of Israel.
This is more than the US government paid for its initial doses of 100 million, $ 1.9 billion, which equates to $ 19 per dose and $ 38 per person. The EU agreed to pay Pfizer / BioNTech $ 18.50 per dose, or $ 37 per person, according to Reuters.
“To carry out this project, the Israeli Ministry of Health will receive doses of the vaccine at a previously agreed price (which remains confidential),” said a Pfizer spokesman.
Politics and Palestine
Israel’s vaccination policy has drawn condemnation from human rights groups and the Palestinian National Authority, as the deployment does not include the more than 5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, many of whom travel to Israel on business.
The country is vaccinating Israeli residents in West Bank settlements, but not Palestinians living there or in Gaza. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, said the exclusion means that Israel is “ignoring its obligations” as an occupying force under international law and “exposes Israel’s institutionalized discrimination”.
There have been high rates of infections and deaths in the West Bank and Gaza, which is currently under a short-term blockade, and Amnesty has asked Israel to “ensure that vaccines are also provided to Palestinians who are under its control”.
“We condemn the racism of the state of occupation, which boasts of the speed of vaccination of its citizens and neglects the legal responsibility to provide vaccines to people under occupation,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said this month.
But this, in the current climate, is unlikely to happen. Yuli Edelstein, the Israeli health minister, said the priority is to vaccinate as many Israelis as possible before considering any shortages on the Palestinian side.
The Palestinian Authority is in talks with several other companies to purchase their own vaccines. The Russian Direct Investment Fund has announced that the Russian Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine has been registered by the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Delivery of the vaccine will begin in February, according to Mai Kailleh, Minister of Health.
“I think there are definitely moral and legal obligations,” Yossi Mekelberg, professor of international relations and senior researcher at the think tank Chatham House, told ABC News. “Many of them work within Israel or in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. They move from place to place. But it doesn’t hit Netanyahu’s base and it probably won’t. “
In the meantime, doctors in Gaza, hard hit by the first wave and now fearing a second wave, say the need for a vaccine is as acute as ever.
“We can say that we are working in a comfortable situation, we are no longer under pressure and I hope that this will continue because there is always a fear of a second wave and it is usually aggressive,” European Gaza Hospital, he told ABC News. “We need the vaccine and as soon as possible, because we are facing a difficult situation in Gaza, we lack resources”.
Bruno Nota, Nasser Atta and Sohel Uddin of ABC News contributed to this report.