JERUSALEM – Just last week, Israel was seen as a model coronavirus country, well ahead of the rest of the world in vaccinating its citizens.
But the virus had other ideas.
This week, Israel faces a tightened lockdown as infections surge to more than 8,000 new cases a day. Officials fear that the more transmissible variant of the virus, first identified in the UK, is spreading rapidly and Israel’s vaccine supplies are running low.
The prospect that Israel would have the virus under control by spring, which was once promising, now seems uncertain. Health officials say the vaccine campaign can’t compete with rising infection rates, at least in the short term.
And the Palestinian Authority, which operates its own health system in the occupied West Bank, has asked Israel for vaccines, which has sparked a debate about Israel’s responsibility to the Palestinians at a time when Israel’s vaccine supplies are dwindling.
“We are at the height of a global pandemic that is spreading at record speed with the UK mutation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement late Tuesday, explaining the government’s decision to impose a full national lockdown that will Closing most schools and schools will all non-essential jobs for at least two weeks.
“With every hour that we delay, the virus is spreading faster and it will cost a very high price,” he added.
The lock decision was made after Prof. Eran Segal of the Weizmann Science Institute in Rehovot, Israel, presented the government with the dire prognosis that without such measures, Israel’s infection rate could rise to 46,000 new cases per day by February, an astonishing number Country with about 9 million inhabitants.
Government officials cited the variant discovered in the UK as one of the main reasons for imposing tighter restrictions. Mr Netanyahu said the line had “jumped forward”, although not at the same pace as the UK.
At least 30 cases of the variant have been identified in Israel through special samples spread across 14 different cities. However, officials and experts said these tests were aimed at identifying the presence of the variant, not quantifying it, and the actual number of cases was likely much higher.
Many scientists believe that the variant is more transmissible, which means that it can more easily spread from one person to another.
Professor Segal said the variant could be a factor in the rising rate of infection in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. In the past four weeks, infections among the ultra-Orthodox have increased sixteen-fold.
He estimated that the variant now accounts for around 20 percent of morbidity in ultra-Orthodox cities and neighborhoods.
During the coronavirus crisis, there was constant tension between the ultra-Orthodox, who make up around 12.5 percent of the population, and the incumbent Israelis, especially because some ultra-Orthodox rabbis insisted on keeping their educational institutions open during the crisis, violating previous lockdowns and regulations generally disregarding the restrictions on large gatherings and social distancing.
Israel’s vaccine supplies cast another shadow over the tempting prospect of an early emergence from the crisis. Vaccine supplies were running low and officials said they may have to slow their widely touted vaccination program until mid-January if they can’t convince drug companies to ship more vaccines sooner than promised.
A few days ago, the Israelis celebrated the successful start of their vaccination campaign, which has surpassed the rest of the world. Approximately 1.5 million Israeli citizens, or more than 16 percent of the population, have received an initial dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine since the vaccination program began on December 20.
Updated
Jan. 7, 2021, 6:03 ET
The shortcoming, according to the authorities, could be due to the success of the program: the first phase of the program went faster than most thought possible.
Israel has not disclosed the number of vaccine doses received as the agreements with the pharmaceutical companies are confidential. The government has promised to reserve enough vaccines so that anyone who received a first dose can get their second dose as planned after about 21 days. This should include the majority of Israel’s high-risk population of health workers and citizens 60 and older.
Quiet negotiations are being held with the drug companies to improve their supplies, but the shortage could lead to delays in implementation. Mr Netanyahu, whose political future may depend on the success of the program, said he “continues to work around the clock to bring millions of vaccines to Israel”.
Mr. Netanyahu said Wednesday that a small initial shipment of Moderna vaccines should arrive on Thursday and that more would follow. Pharmaceutical companies now see Israel as an interesting test case for vaccination effectiveness and possibly the first country to be fully vaccinated. Officials and experts stated this, which gives him an advantage in securing additional shipments.
Israel has been criticized by human rights groups for failing to expand its vaccination program to most Israeli-controlled Palestinians, despite the fact that Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank have been vaccinated.
Palestinian officials have recorded hundreds of Covid-19 cases daily in the occupied West Bank and Hamas-led Gaza Strip, the overcrowded Palestinian coastal enclave whose borders are tightly controlled by Israel and Egypt, and health officials believe the real numbers are much higher . Palestinians in these areas have not yet received vaccines.
On Wednesday, two Palestinian officials said the Palestinian Authority had asked Israel for up to 10,000 doses of the vaccine to immunize Palestinian frontline workers.
Hussein al-Sheikh, the top Palestinian official in charge of coordination with the Israelis, said Israel refused.
An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for not having the authority to speak to the news media, said Israel secretly delivered “dozen” vaccines to the Palestinians this week but has not yet responded to the larger request. Several Palestinian officials denied having received vaccines from Israel.
The Oslo Accords, the provisional peace accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1990s, commit both sides to work together to fight epidemics and provide each other with support in emergencies.
The Geneva Conventions also oblige an occupying power to ensure medical care for the local population and preventive measures to combat contagious diseases and epidemics.
Alan Baker, a former Israeli ambassador and international law expert who helped draft the Oslo Accords, said he believes this would “represent a commitment for Israel to provide vaccines to fight Covid 19 help “but that was it” a one-way street. “
Hamas, he said, holds Israeli hostages in Gaza and is obliged to release them by the same humanitarian standards.
Israel Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said last week it was in Israel’s best interest to contain the virus on the Palestinian side, but Israel’s first obligation was to its own citizens. (Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem receive vaccinations through the Israeli program.)
Dr. Ali Abed Rabbo, a senior official in the agency’s health department, said the Palestinians hope to receive two million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in February. They also expect the Covax global vaccine-sharing system to deliver 60,000 doses in the first quarter of 2021 and nearly two million more later this year.
United Nations officials have asked Israel to provide the Palestinians with some vaccines to protect their medical workers, said Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the World Health Organization’s mission to the Palestinians.
But Israel advised United Nations officials that it cannot send vaccines to the Palestinians just yet because of a lack of shots for its own citizens, Rockenschaub said.
