Pfizer, Israel agree: New COVID vaccines coming August 1Pfizer, Israel agree: New COVID vaccines coming August 1
As Israel continues to register a high number of daily cases, the Health Ministry opens up third vaccine shot for immunocompromised patients.
All the current supply of vaccines Israel possesses is due to expire on July 31. For this reason,
individuals under 18 were not supposed to be able to receive a first shot
until new vaccines arrived since three weeks are supposed to elapse between the first and second shots. The country currently has some 200,000 doses of Moderna, which are only authorized for adults.
However, thanks to the new deal, the vaccination campaign will continue.
"We have been working on the issue of vaccines for several weeks," Bennett said. "This morning I am pleased to announce that after a series of talks with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, we closed a deal last night to move up the next vaccination delivery to August 1st."
"There are vaccines for everyone," he further said, inviting all those who haven't gotten inoculated to do so.
Some 200,000 doses of vaccines are expected to be delivered on August 1.
Last week, Israel announced it had reached a deal with South Korea for a vaccine exchange deal. Under this deal, South Korea has been delivered some 700,000 doses, which it will return with their next vaccine delivery.
Earlier in the day, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said that immunocompromised patients in Israel will be able to receive a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine starting from today.
Speaking to KAN Radio, Horowitz said that the healthcare providers will determine who are the eligible patients. The opportunity is available for those who are in specific conditions, for example those who underwent an organ transplant.
In the meantime,
Israel continues to register a high number of daily cases. If at the beginning of June some 10-20 new virus carriers every day, today we are talking about several hundreds. Most days last week, Israel registered over 500 cases. On Saturday there were 261 new virus carriers identified, but with a significantly lower number of tests some 50,000 compared to over 70,000.The number of active cases, which had dropped to less than 200 just a few weeks ago, currently stands at over 4,100.
At the same time, the increase in serious morbidity has remained minimum. As of Saturday night there were 44 serious patients. In April, with a similar number of active cases, they were over 260.
At the coronavirus cabinet meeting last Wednesday, the ministers said the number of patients in serious condition will be the central parameters to determine the country's strategy against the virus.
Prof. Eran Segal, a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, who is an advisor to the government has said that he does not believe Israel will reach the same number of such patients that it registered at the peak of the pandemic some 1,200.
"Why do I think we are not going back to some 1,000 seriously ill patients in the hospitals?," he tweeted. "Because all it takes to return to the pre-Delta decline (in cases) is an additional number of individuals vaccinated or recovered. How many? It is not clear, maybe 500,000, maybe more."Before the contagious Delta variant spread in Israel, many experts thought that the country had reached some form of herd immunity, since the outbreaks were very limited for several months.However, the rate of a population immune from the virus though inoculation or previous infection required to reach herd immunity increases as the ability of the virus to infect increases, as in the case of the Delta variant."Another 200,000 have been vaccinated in the last two weeks and if some more among the 1.1 million we have not yet vaccinated get jabbed, that may be enough" Segal further wrote.
"If not, and the increase in new cases will continue, but this time, because of the vaccines, there will have to be much more cases than before to reach the same amount of seriously ill patients. According to our model maybe even 500,000, which in itself will lead to many people recovering, who will help start a new decline (in cases).
Segal noted that in the UK, where the Delta variant is raging, there are eight to ten times less people who succumb to the virus, and three or four time less hospitalized patients compared to the period before vaccination started.Also on Sunday, the government approved the appointment of Coronavirus Commissioner Prof. Nachman Ash as the new director-general of the Health Ministry, to replace Prof. Chezy Levy.
