Envoy bares Israel’s Covid game plan

THE Israeli Ambassador to Manila on Thursday revealed his country’s master plan for winning the battle against Covid-19.

During a roundtable interview with The Manila Times on Thursday, Ambassador Rafael Harpaz said Israel started its Covid vaccination program as early as December 2020.

“We have to be very cautious about it. But generally, today, in Israel, life is normal. When there is no Covid, Hamas [rocket attacks], life is pretty normal,” he said, alluding to renewed tensions between Israel and the Palestinian militant group.

The success against the pandemic lies in bringing in the vaccines early, Harpaz said.

“Second, Israel has a great public health system with very strong HMOs (health maintenance organizations),” he said, referring to a network that provides health insurance coverage.

Harpaz said 5.5 million people in Israel have received the first jab, and more than 5 million have received the second dose.

Israel has a population of 9.5 million. “There were days we vaccinated 200,000 people per day,” he said.

The envoy said he has briefed the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases on Israel’s pandemic response.

“I’ll tell you how it works. You’re invited to get the vaccine. It’s in your neighborhood, no lines, it’s all computerized,” he said.

“You go and show up. You get the shot. You wait 15 minutes. If there are no side effects, you get a text message with an invitation 21 days exactly for the second shot. They keep the second shot for you. You go after 21 days, you get a second shot. Again you wait 15 minutes and during the 15 minutes you get a green passport that tells you the date of the first shot, the second shot, the validity of it,” Harpaz said.

He said his government has extended the validity of inoculation from six months to one year.

He declined to offer advice on how the Philippine government can deal with the pandemic effectively. “I’m in no position to give advice to the Philippines. I tell you what we have until now in Israel,” he said.

He noted there were times when Covid cases in Israel shot up. “Like in the Philippines, we need to open a corona section in the hospitals, we need more doctors and more budget and more nurses. I think these were the lessons that Israel had learned.” Harpaz said.

Israel uses only the vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna, he said.

The country signed an agreement a few weeks ago with Pfizer and Moderna for another 60 million doses, which are enough to last until 2022, Harpaz said.

“This is not for the first and second shot. This is planning for a third shot, a booster shot. So, the efficiency of the HMOs in Israel was critical in this,” the envoy said.

Harpaz said the 30,000 or so Filipinos in Israel have been vaccinated for free.

He said Israel has received requests for vaccine donations from about 20 countries, including the Philippines.

“The Philippines will definitely [be among the] top priority in this region of Southeast Asia [to receive vaccine donation],” Harpaz said.