Israel’s national coronavirus vaccination campaign expanded on Sunday, with the opening of additional stations to get the vaccine and priority extended to patients with breast diseases.
Another 150 vaccination stations were due to open on Sunday, with Israel entering its third national lockout, with another 80 to come into operation by Tuesday.
A receives the coronavirus vaccine at a clalit clinic in the southern city of Sderot
(Photo: Barel Ephraim)
Israel’s goal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night, “is to reach 150,000 vaccines every day before the next weekend.”
Netanyahu said he had asked the leaders of the pharmaceutical companies to increase the supply level of vaccine doses to Israel “according to the level of the vaccine.”
“This means that, within 30 days of reaching this distance, we will have received four and a half million citizens,” said Netanyahu, “Israel has a population of about nine million people.”
“We are embarking on a major worldwide vaccine campaign, and in the process I urge you to close briefly.
“Together, these two things take us out of the coronavirus [pandemic] first in the world, “the prime minister said in a video he posted online.
Israeli queue to get coronavirus vaccine in Tel Aviv
On Health Minister Yuli Edelstein on Saturday night he instructed the ministry’s chief executive, Dr. Hezi Levy, to investigate whether teachers can get the vaccine as early as this week.
Although the permit is only granted by a special committee, Edelstein argued Levy following inquiries from Education Minister Yoav Galant and Israeli Teachers Union general secretary Yaffa Ben-David.
The Rambam Healthcare Campus in Haifa and the Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv were also starting to vaccinate not only their medical staff but also people aged 60 and over, and more hospitals are expected to across the country joining them. People over the age of 60 were already being vaccinated by their health maintenance organization.
A man is receiving the coronavirus vaccine at the Meuhedet clinic in Tel Aviv
(Photo: Shalev Shalom)
The Clalit HMO, Israel’s largest health fund, will have 83 vaccination centers this week, compared to just 31 centers last week. Three of them – in Herzliya, Tel Aviv and Haifa – work 24 hours a day.
Maccabi, the second largest HMO, will operate 67 vaccine centers this week, compared to 21 locations at the weekend. Meuhedet HMO operates around 70 outlets and Leumit almost doubles its site number to 25.
An Israeli Democracy Institute poll released Sunday found that 40.8% of the public gave the government positive ratings for handling the medical aspects of the crisis, while 32.2% gave it mostly negative ratings.
In terms of economic issues, the government rating was 52.8% negative and 19.7% positive.
Israelis throw to Rishon Lezion dealership on Sunday, hours before the country’s third lock
(Photo: Meshi Ben Ami)
Sunday – the third country ‘s lockout will last at least three weeks and aims to prevent pollution that is currently doubling in scale every two weeks, the Ministry of Health said.
The vaccines mean “there is a very high chance that this will be our last closure”, Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of the ministry’s public health services department, told Radio Cymru.
Reuters contributed to this report