As of Dec 29th, Israel, number 32 in the world’s list of infections, had 407,285 people infected, at 44,282 per million, with 3256 deaths, 146 people on ventilators, 354 in critical condition, and 37,509 active cases. But Israel has over 5,000 cases a day reported, nearly 6% of all those tested. By comparison, the world had 81,680,270 infections at 10,476 per million, with 1,781,776 deaths at 229 per million, with 105,801 in critical condition, and over 22 million active cases. The USA is #1 in the world with 19,901,603 cases, that's 59,952 per million, with 345,617 deaths at 1041 per million, with 28,943 critical cases and 7,774,362 active cases.
Israel, population 9.2 million, has so far vaccinated nearly 500,000 people using the Pfizer vaccine, the only one available as of now in Israel. The Israel Ministry of Health says that 21% of those citizens over 60 have been vaccinated. 150 HMO branches, 22 hospitals, and 11 other centers, have been vaccinating the population. Former Covid-19 czar Ronni Gimzu, head of Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital, has opened the hospital’s doors 24/7 to anyone who wanted to be vaccinated.
According to the TimesOfIsrael, Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the acting head of the Health Ministry’s public health services, hailed the speed of Israel’s vaccination drive, but also noted that the vaccine is only 95% effective, and that COVID-19 could yet mutate problematically — even though the vaccines are increasingly thought to be effective against the highly contagious so-called British mutation.
Ynet news reported that “the Health Ministry says communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic are the least prepared to get vaccinated, while the biggest number of inoculated was recorded in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and others.” Israeli Arab and Haredi cities are reporting the least number of those vaccinated.
Amid all of this, starting next week, Israel will launch a massive innoculation campaign, once the medical staff and the 60+ are innoculated. Teachers are now on the list for innoculations. Then the general public. Health officials estimate that most of the country will be innoculated with both doses by the end of February. (This, while some countries, like the USA are struggling to start their innoculation program. Many in the USA reportedly blame outgoing president Trump who, according to a report in foreignpolicy.com, writing about how the Swedish government misread the Covid-19 scale, followed his advisor Scott Atlas’ advice to aim for herd immunity, as Sweden did. Sweden also refused to mandate wearing masks or closing stores and restaurants. Today, Sweden, with a population of @10 million, similar to Israel’s, has a death rate three times that of Israels.
One observer pointed out that not everyone who gets Covid-19 gets the VIP treatment President Trump did. Reportedly, President Trump held up the Covid-19 stimulus package until yesterday. This, according to observers, also held up the distribution of the vaccines since the package contained a budget to pay for the vaccine’s transportation.)
However, not everyone in Israel is happy with Israel’s rapid and successful vaccination program. Miri Mizrachi Reuveni, CEO of Maccabi, one of Israel’s largest HMOs, told Israel radio’s Reshet Bet that hospitals were receiving the vaccine instead of the HMOs who were the backbone of Israel’s health system. She said that Maccabi HMOs are now innoculating 25,000 people a day and could go up to 40,000 but no higher since Maccabi does not have access to more vaccines. As of now, an HMO member makes an appointment, gets a day and time, arrives and receives the vaccine. At the same time, the HMO’s computers reserve a second vaccine 21 days later for the person to receive the second dose. Pfizer’s vaccine comes in two doses. The first is reportedly 50% effective, but that number jumps to 95% after the second ‘booster’ shot.
Reuveni said that the hospitals were not the right venue for the injections since hospitals by definition were for “sick people,” whereas the HMOs were not, so the person coming for an injection to an HMO was not exposed to the same viruses and bacteria that float around a hospital. She said, “There’s a panic, now (of a shortage of vaccines) with people just showing up at the HMO and waiting in line for an innoculation. These people, who showed up without an appointment, took the injections meant for other people, depleting the supply. She also said that the hospitals were using up vaccines that should go to the outlaying towns and cities away from the center of the country.
Not so, said Prof Yaaron Niv, a health ministry official, on Reshet Bet radio. The first round of inoculations were for medical staff and then those over 60. The hospitals were given doses of the vaccine to inoculate their staff. Once these doses, he called them “sets,” were taken out of the freezer, where they were kept at -80 Celsius, they had to be used within two to three hours or they were useless and had to be disposed of. Each dose cost 200 shekels (@$62). He said the hospitals were giving those “sets” to people, who were waiting around the hospital in hopes of getting an innoculation, after the hospital staff had been innoculated, rather than toss the vaccines in the garbage, a waste of the vaccines and the money it cost to purchase them.
Health Minister Covid-19 Czar Nahum Ash told Israel radio later in the day that there was no shortage of vaccines and no cause for panic. According to the TimesOfIsrael, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein dismissed rumors that stocks of the Pfizer vaccine Israel is using were running low. “I hear all over the place rumors about a grave shortage in the vaccines,” he said. “There is no shortage, and there will be no shortage.” Channel 12 TV news reported that Israel expects to receive a total of 3.8 billion doses by Thursday, Dec 31st.
This announcement followed TV news reports, like that on Channel 12, showing lines of people over 60 outside an HMO in Tel Aviv waiting for an innoculation without an appointment. Many of them told TV reporters they’d grown tired of waiting an hour on the phone to make an appointment only to have the call disconnected. So, they simply went down to the HMO and stood in line. According to reports, the nurses at the HMOs were not always strict about appointments and anyone who showed up received an injection. One woman in her late 60’s said that she had an appointment and her 70+ year-old husband tagged along with her. She received the inoculation and so did her husband, who didn’t have an appointment. The woman said she was upset to see teenaged Yeshiva students also in line and receiving the innoculations that were meant for the elderly and those at risk.
At the Meuchedet health clinic in Modiin, however, the nurses wouldn’t accept anyone without an appointment. “We can’t,” said the nurse. “Because we have to know who is coming and how many doses to save for the second injection. Without people logged in through the computer we can’t do that.”
Israel is ostensibly in a lockdown, which will reportedly cost NIS 2.5 billion (@$80 million)a week. However the Health Ministry and the Education Ministry were at loggerheads, with the former wanting to limit the number of children in schools and the latter pushing for all children to be in school. The
Education Ministry won the battle. Children from pre-school through 12th grade all attend school. One observer said that essentially killed the lockdown. Parents didn’t have to stay home to be with their children but were free to go to work. Israel TV’s channel 12 showed footage of police patrolling popular promenades and rather than writing up fines for 500 shekels ($155) for people outside a coffee shop sipping their beverages, they simply asked the people to go home. Many small stores, who were supposed to be closed, ignored the lockdown. Restaurants are also closed except for delivery. Although Finance Minister Katz says he will allow carry out from restaurants to reopen soon. Traffic on the roads was almost as busy as normal with the police reporting only a 20% drop in traffic.
All of this while Israel is in the throes of another election.
A game of musical chairs is going on with members of the Likud and Blue and White parties, and a few other parties, said one observer. A few of Likud’s top people have left the party, like Gideon Saar who launched a his new right-wing “New Hope” party. Then came the “bombshell” when long-time Netanyahu loyalist Minister Zeev Elkin left the Likud in a surprising televised press conference saying Netanyahu was a danger to the country because he put his own personal needs, like his trial, above those of the country. Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn abandoned Blue and White for a new center-left party being formed by Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai.
According to the latest Channel 12 TV poll, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party gets 28 Knesset seats, but his former Likud rival Gideon Saar’s “New Hope” party isn’t that far behind with 19. Benny Ganz’s Blue and White has slipped down to 5, if that. Blue and White won 33 seats in the March 2020 election. Many in the Blue and White party are now actively looking for a new home.
Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid/Telem still comes in with a respectable 15 seats, even though his number 2 Ofer Shelach left to form his own party bringing with him two members of the Yesh Atid/Telem party. Neftali Bennet’s Yamina shows up with 15. None of the parties are even close to a majority of 61 and deals will have to be made with the ultra-orthodox parties, Shaas and Degel HaTorah, each with about 8 seats. Avidgor Leiberman’s right wing Yisrael Beytenu would get five seats and so would the left-wing Meretz party.
Pundits say that each election brings with it a new rising star, a “new hope” for the country. The last was Benny Gantz, who observers say was well-meaning and sincere, but also naive and a “frier” (sucker) who was skillfully manipulated by PM Netanyahu. This round it is Gideon Saar who seems poised to vacuum away Likud support from Netanyahu, seen as responsible for the poor response to the pandemic. Some observers think Saar’s party may become the new Likud.
Meanwhile, Israel’s high court is to consider if PM Netanyahu should be investigated for his part in the $2 billion submarine scandal that saw some of his closest confidants indicted on bribery charges. And, Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group has said that he has a huge stockpile of missiles that could hit Israel’s major cities with precision. Experts say that this is just Nasrallah trying to stay in the news and that he has no intention of carrying out his threat. Others say that usually, in the past, Nasrallah did what he said he was going to do.
Odd times. Odd reactions. History will be the judge of who made the right calls.
One correspondent reported a strange story. While going through his late grandfather’s effects, cleaning out his home after the grandfather had passed away, he discovered a journal from1918 and in it a mask used during that epidemic. The journal held a daily record of what life was like under that pandemic.
So, what will future generations find that relates to this one? Will the verdict be good or will we all be seen as having lived through a period of recklessness and folly by self-centered leaders more concerned with their own image than the good of their citizens? Time will tell. Meanwhile, experts say, don’t forget to wear a mask.
