When will Israel’s vaccination campaign boost the country’s economy?

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While the U.S. and western European countries are still struggling to take their Covid-19 vaccine initiatives off the ground, Israel has made remarkable progress, with 42.6% of Israelis over 16 year on receiving at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine.

Now comes a key test: Will the economy recover?

The rapid release of Israeli vaccine has created a natural test to test how quickly the national economy can reconnect after the widespread Covid-19 vaccine. Israel’s vaccination campaign is at the level the U.S. hopes to be by the end of spring. If Israel can show that vaccination can restore most of the country ‘s population to lost economic activity that lost the virus, it could offer hope for a global recovery in the near future. Israel administers both

Pfizer

(ticker: PFE) and the

Moderna

Vaccines (MRNA).

To date, there is insufficient data to show the impact of the Israeli vaccination campaign on the country’s economy. The country is now emerging only from a long lock that has deepened unemployment.

While Israel has been increasingly criticized for not including Palestinian citizens of the West Bank and Gaza in their vaccination campaign, vaccine progress among Israelis has been phenomenal. According to data compiled by the website Our World in Data, 89.9% of Israelis over 60 had received at least one dose of vaccine since February 6, while 80.1% had received two doses.

Among Israelis aged 16 to 59, 36.7% had received at least one dose and 20% had received two doses. On February 10, 26.9% of the population had received two measurements.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed new cases of Covid-19 has been falling from a recent peak in mid-January. The country hit a seven-day follow-up average of 8,624 new cases on January 17. That number was down 32.3% to 5,836 as of February 10th.

The vaccination campaign does not yet appear to lead to an economic upturn. The Israeli Bureau of Central Statistics said in its latest news that 16.7% of unemployed Israelis in the first half of January consumed the broadest measure of unemployment, up from 13.7% in the second half of December.

Israel declared its third national lockdown on December 27, with restrictions easing late last week.

The bureau says 10.1% of Israelis are out of work for causes related to the pandemic.

A more recent Google report, based on anonymous consumer data, shows that, since February 5, there have been visits to retail and entertainment sites in Israel, including restaurants, cafes, and malls, down 51% compared to baseline. A Google report does not say how it reached the baseline number.

Write to Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected]