Israel launched the world’s fastest Covid-19 vaccination campaign, inoculating nearly 20% of its population in three weeks. The small country – with about nine million inhabitants, almost the same as New York City – now plans to inoculate the majority of its population by March.
Although Israel’s vaccination campaign is relatively straightforward compared to the mass mobilizations needed for countries like the United States, which have far more people spread over a larger geographic region, the effort offers some clear lessons.
Send smaller vaccine shipments
The Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine should be administered within five days after leaving the main storage center and within six hours after adding a diluent, before five to six doses are extracted from a vial.
To cope with the short lifespan and reach less populated and isolated areas, Israel – with Pfizer’s approval – developed a system to split the company’s 1,000-dose packs into smaller batches of a few hundred each. Workers repack the bottles at workstations equipped with huge freezers.
Israel, like most other countries, is giving priority to medical professionals, people over 60 and those with high-risk conditions as vaccine recipients. But to ensure that no vials are wasted, the authorities are also allowing vaccine centers to distribute excess doses to anyone who appears.