Israel is outperforming other countries in vaccinating its population against COVID-19, an extraordinary achievement hailed by public health experts at home and abroad, and one that can propel it toward coveted collective immunity more quickly than almost any nation.
But Israel is also being criticized for leaving almost 5 million Palestinians behind in its control in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which must wait much longer for mass inoculation.
In less than three weeks, Israel vaccinated almost 15% of its 9.3 million people with the first of two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, dramatically overtaking the United States and much of Europe in terms of population size. In comparison, the US rate hovers below 1.5%, according to data compiled by a vaccination tracking website at the University of Oxford.
With vaccines being administered to more than 150,000 people a day in Israel, the groups that were given priority to be vaccinated – health professionals and citizens over 60 – are due to receive their second vaccines in late January, even as the country struggles against a fierce new wave of infections.
The launch of the highly praised vaccine could allow Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, running for re-election while on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust, to improve his wavering poll numbers and deflect harsh criticisms of his overall management of the pandemic response . The prime minister was the first in the country to receive the vaccine, exposing his arm live on television last month and encouraging others to get the vaccine.
With the March elections on the horizon, the initial effectiveness of the vaccination campaign is already giving Netanyahu a chance to present the prospect of a faster economic recovery. On Monday, the Bank of Israel released an improved assessment of the country’s prospects for 2021, forecasting a retraction in the economy of less than 4%, instead of its initial estimate of 6%, if the rapid rate of inoculation is maintained.
Along with Israel’s small size and its technology-savvy methods, the country’s long-established and highly digitized national health care system is receiving much of the credit for its initial successful deployment. By law, every Israeli citizen must register with one of the four health maintenance organizations, which are heavily subsidized by the government.
Public health, from vaccination in early childhood to caring for the elderly, is based on a network of community clinics present in almost all Israeli locations. This socialized system has decades of experience with reach and logistics, and there is a national vaccine registry, initially established to track common childhood inoculations.
Another key factor in the initial triumph of the vaccine was aggressive acquisition. When Pfizer became the first manufacturer to certify the effectiveness of its vaccine, it was reported that Israel paid up to twice the price paid by European countries, and up to three times the price paid by the United States, to guarantee delivery of about 8 million initial doses.
The Netanyahu administration has also secured preliminary agreements with vaccine manufacturers Moderna and AstraZeneca, with the first doses of the Moderna vaccine expected to arrive within two weeks.
Israel’s high-speed, high-efficiency vaccine regime does not extend to the occupied West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live, or to the Gaza Strip, where another 2 million Palestinians live, which is blocked by Israel and Egypt.
Israel rejects the position defended by some humanitarian aid groups that it is responsible for the civilian populations under its control, saying that the 1990s peace accords put the burden of providing medical assistance, even in a public health emergency, to authorities Palestinian.
A consortium of 15 Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations has asked Israel to ensure that vaccines that meet the strict standards of the Israeli health system are purchased and delivered to Palestinian land as soon as possible.
Israeli officials said some surplus doses of vaccine may be donated, but no formal plans are in place. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Israel’s first responsibility is to its own citizens, but some have argued that this carries a moral and perhaps legal responsibility.
“I am very proud of how well our HMOs have provided vaccines to Israelis, including Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of occupied East Jerusalem,” said Israeli lawyer and activist Daniel Seidemann in an online post. At the same time, he said: “I am so ashamed that we have not been able to vaccinate the Palestinians we occupy in the West Bank and Gaza.”
Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel, who represent about a fifth of the population, are included in the national vaccination campaign. Netanyahu and other officials traveled on New Year’s Day to the predominantly Arab city of Umm al Fahm, in northern Israel, for a news conference marking the millionth vaccination.
Jewish settlers living in the West Bank are receiving vaccines as part of the Israeli government’s effort, while Palestinians in neighboring villages are not. Palestinian officials hope to start supplying some vaccines next month, although the effort is likely to be much slower than on the Israeli side.
Some West Bank Palestinians who work on the other end of the line are receiving the vaccine. Walid Nammour, the executive director of Augusta Victoria, one of East Jerusalem’s top six hospitals, said 70% of his team would be vaccinated by Thursday. Of these, he said, 9 out of 10 are from the West Bank.
Nammour described the Israeli approach as short-sighted, because many Israelis and Palestinians live or work closely together.
“It does not help Israel, because if everyone in Israel gets vaccinated and the Palestinians in the West Bank do not, the pandemic will not be controlled,” he said.
Coinciding with its rapid launch of vaccines, Israel is facing new strict restrictions designed to contain what has become a massive new outbreak of coronavirus cases. The number of infections in Israel has exceeded 450,000, with more than 3,400 deaths.
The government is about to approve a fourth national blockade, which will keep people in their homes, close schools and workplaces and once again paralyze the economy. To complicate matters, Israel has identified more than 30 cases of individuals infected with the potentially most contagious coronavirus strain first identified in Britain.
“The contagion rate is catastrophic,” said Edelstein, the health minister.
Some experts, however, said that the fear of contracting the virus could help to dispel any lingering doubts among vaccine skeptics, paradoxically increasing the boost for inoculation.
“When the infection is high, people are motivated to get the vaccines,” said Dr. Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist at the Hebrew University and president of the Israeli Association. of Public Health Doctors. “Fewer people start thinking, ‘This is not going to happen to me.'”
Tarnopolsky is a special correspondent. The Times editor Laura King of Washington contributed to this report.