Mass teen vaccination campaign ends with another 200,000 jabs
PM pushing for ‘soft restraint’ COVID management plan • People arriving from abroad must isolate for up to 24 hours starting July 16
Some 40% of teens under the age of 19 were vaccinated as of Saturday night, as the country’s push to get youngsters inoculated came to a close.
Some 200,000 Israelis got the jab in the last month – mostly teens between the ages of 12 and 16 – the Health Ministry said. Health funds kept their vaccination complexes open late to accommodate those interested in being jabbed. Some youth were even vaccinated at the beach.
First doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine were only available until Saturday night, because the country’s supply expires at the end of the month, which is the deadline for the second vaccination three weeks later, and no new vaccines are expected in the country until September.
Israel is negotiating with Pfizer to try to advance the country’s shipment to early August, N12 reported. However, no deal has been finalized. In the interim, the Health Ministry is considering recommending that unvaccinated students start the school year on September 1 in capsules to avoid infection.
Over the weekend, Pfizer and partner BioNTech said that they plan to ask US and European regulators within weeks to authorize a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine, based on evidence of greater risk of infection six months after inoculation
and the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.
Pfizer’s chief scientific officer Mikael Dolsten said that early data from the company’s own studies show that a third booster dose generates antibody levels that are five to 10 times higher than after the second dose, suggesting that a third dose will offer promising protection.
But the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a joint statement that Americans who
have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster COVID-19 shot at this time.
Similarly, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it was too early to determine whether more than the two shots that are currently required would be called for, saying it was confident for now that the established regimen was sufficient.
Israeli health officials have also said there is not enough data to warrant such a shot right now. Rather, they said they will offer a boost to those
people who qualify as immunocompromised. Those shots are expected to begin this week.
ON FRIDAY, the Health Ministry finalized the first stages in its plan to slow infections at Ben-Gurion Airport.
People entering Israel will be required to self isolate for up to 24 hours beginning on July 16, it said.
According to a Friday announcement, the obligation applies to everyone entering Israel from any country, whether they are vaccinated or not. The isolation period is until the result of a negative coronavirus test taken at the airport arrives or for up to one day – whichever comes first.
The ministry also updated the list of high-risk countries from which returning Israelis are required to enter isolation regardless of their vaccination status: United Arab Emirates, Seychelles, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Paraguay, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan and Tunisia.
The standard isolation period is 14 days, which can be shortened to 10 days with two negative coronavirus tests – the second taken on day nine. The ministry is evaluating shortening the isolation period to as little as six days at the request of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to improve compliance.
Citizens can travel to these countries without special permission. The requirement to isolate applies only upon their return.
In addition, the Health Ministry added Uzbekistan and Belarus to the list of countries
considered to be of maximum risk, to which Israelis are banned from visiting without special permission. The rest of the list includes Brazil, South Africa, India, Mexico and Russia.
All travel guidelines are in effect until July 25, unless otherwise updated by the ministry.
The government pushed off a plan to allow individual vaccinated tourists to enter Israel on July 1 due to the Delta variant outbreak. On Wednesday, incoming Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash said that it is unclear if tourists will be allowed in beginning August 1, the new date set by the government.
That date is likely to be pushed yet another month, to September 1, N12 reported.
The announcement of the isolation requirement is part of a series of minimal new restrictions that the government’s coronavirus cabinet approved last week to help stop the spread of the virus in Israel.
MOVING FORWARD, the government is planning to go with a plan that will help Israelis to learn to live alongside the coronavirus, The Jerusalem Post has confirmed.
Bennett will push for a strategy he calls “soft restraint,” which would include rolling out a “green pass lite”
program at large events in closed spaces; strong enforcement at Ben-Gurion Airport, where rapid tests will finally be rolled out; shortening isolation to increase adherence as mentioned above; placing an emphasis on protecting the elderly and at-risk, but keeping lockdowns and widespread restrictions to a minimum and only as a last result.
Wearing masks in closed spaces is expected to stay with Israelis for a long time.
ON SATURDAY, the ministry reported 531 new coronavirus cases.
Some 85,000 people were screened, meaning about 0.7% of those tested returned positive.
The ministry listed 40 people in serious condition. As the Post reported over the weekend, the number of serious patients is slowly climbing this time around, and some of those included in the Health Ministry count were infected in previous waves.
Bennett spoke on Friday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson about dealing with the coronavirus. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the leaders discussed their countries’ strategies and agreed on continued cooperation.
England has decided to remove restrictions on July 19 despite a rise in Delta variant infections. But data shared by Eran Segal, a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science over the
weekend, showed that there is a good reason.
According to the data, if in previous waves some 20 to 25 people died out of every 1,000 infected, now that more than 85% of the UK has had at least one jab, that number has decreased to two out of every 1,000.
In Israel, three people died from COVID-19 in less than a week.
On Saturday, an 88-year-old vaccinated woman from Haifa died at Rambam Medical Center. Last week, a 48-year-old unvaccinated man and an 86-year-old vaccinated man who suffered from underlying medical conditions died of the virus, according to the hospitals at which they were treated.
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