Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Colin Brennan

RTE Prime Time viewers watch in envy of Israel's vaccine plan progress and hints of normality

Many RTE Prime Time viewers watched on in envy of Israel's vaccine progress in a segment on the show last night.

Israel 's rapid vaccination programme has drawn a lot of attention where they have inoculated more than 3.3 million people of their 9.2 million population.

They have the fastest vaccination programme in the world, injecting up to 200,000 people a day.

RTE Prime Time asked Dr Anat Ekka-Zohar, of Maccabi Health Service in Jerusalem about how successful the Pfizer vaccine is proving in the real-time fight against the coronavirus.

The infection rate remains high, 6,000 cases on Monday.

Studies in Israel have offered tentative optimism on the effectiveness of vaccines in curbing the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Anat Ekka-Zohar said that the inoculation campaign has helped as decreases in both hospital cases and infections.

Everybody who has been vaccinated can go anywhere in the county.

She added: "They can go the cinema and the restaurant from Saturday."

RTÉ Prime Time's Louise Byrne (RTE Prime Time)

John Carolan posted on Twitter: "Fair play to Israel with their vaccine rollout, wish we had a competent plan like them.

"Another six months, ahead for us."

Another said: "How does Israel deploy 4 million vaccines and were at about 10% of that.?? "

Bett Weaver posted: "Fantastic organisation by Israel, hopefully the good news continues as the vaccine takes effect across the whole population."

Israel's health ministry released official results at the end of January which shows that 317 out of 715,425, or 0.04% of people were infected a week after getting vaccinated.

Of the vaccinated people who were infected with Covid-19, 16 had to be treated in hospital, or 0.002% of the total.

However, some questioned on social media how many Palestinians have been vaccinated.

One said: "Wonder how many Palestinians Israel has vaccinated."

It is unclear at the moment when the roughly two million Palestinians in Gaza will start to get vaccinations.

Dr Anat Ekka-Zohar said: "We want to help our neighbours and we will help them of course.

"We have to do it together, we have to be partners in this effort to get vaccinated."

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.