Israel ups vaccination effort

Netanyahu: Deal with Pfizer to help nation meet March goal

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has reached a new agreement with the Pfizer drug company that will allow Israel to vaccinate all citizens over 16 by the end of March.

Israel has secured millions of doses and launched one of the earliest and fastest vaccination drives in the world. The country of 9 million has vaccinated more than 15 percent of its population. Israel’s Magen David Adom medical service said Thursday it has given the first of two vaccine doses to all nursing home residents and staff.

Netanyahu said that under the agreement with Pfizer, Israel would be a “global model” and a source of statistical data that could be used to combat the pandemic elsewhere.

Despite the vaccine campaign, Israel has seen a surge in cases, leading authorities to tighten an already existing lockdown. Most schools and businesses will be closed starting Friday, with public gatherings restricted for a two-week period.

Netanyahu said “we have victory within reach” and is calling on Israelis to abide by the lockdown in “one last big effort.”

Meanwhile, Lebanon has begun a 25-day nationwide lockdown, its third since the first February.

It closes most businesses and reduces flights at its only international airport. As of Thursday, a daily 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew will take effect until Feb. 1.

In other developments:

■ State health officials in Brazil say a study has found that a vaccine candidate made by China’s Sinovac is 78 percent effective in protecting against COVID-19. More than 12,000 health workers participated in the study, which detected 218 cases of COVID-19 — about 160 of those among people who received a placebo rather than the actual vaccine.

■ Facing criticism over a slow rollout of virus vaccines — with barely 500 people vaccinated in the first week — France’s government pledged Thursday to speed up jabs for seniors. Prime Minister Jean Castex said French citizens over 75 years old would have access to a vaccine from Jan. 18, replacing previous plans for next month at the earliest. The vaccines will be eligible for all in that age group — not just those in nursing homes.

■ Britain’s National Health Service will from next week employ a little-used field hospital specially built at a huge exhibition center in east London in the early days of the pandemic last spring. NHS England Chief Executive Simon Stevens said Thursday that the pressures facing hospitals in London and the southeast of England are so acute that the Nightingale hospital at the Excel London will be opened next week to inpatients. A few hundred beds for NON-COVID patients are expected to be available at first.

■ South Africa said it will import 1.5 million doses of the Astrazeneca vaccine to inoculate the country’s health workers. That was South Africa’s first announcement of the purchase of a COVID-19 vaccine as its cases soar. The first 1 million doses will be delivered later this month from the Serum Institute of India, followed by an additional 500,000 doses in February, Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize announced Thursday.

■ Thailand is extending a state of emergency by another month until Feb. 28 and tightening travel restriction in parts of the country.