Israel’s COVID storm is a warning. The pandemic is far from over

Israel can be taken as a prototype for how even a highly vaccinated country can fall prey to the COVID-19 pandemic with the Delta variant playing a major role. Coronavirus cases in the Jewish state have surged as professor Salman Zarka, who was appointed Israel’s Chief COVID Officer in July, spoke of the need to roll out second booster shots. This downfall of Israel comes after it was the first country in the world to fully vaccinate a majority of its citizens against COVID-19.

Israel had the highest per-capita caseload of anywhere in the week through September 4, as per Johns Hopkins University. The country has fallen from first to 33rd in Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker of populations considered fully vaccinated. This comes as people, especially  in the Orthodox Jewish and Arab communities, have been hesitant about taking the vaccination. 

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The Delta variant has contributed enough to boost Israel’ COVID-19 number to an all-time high of 11,316 daily cases on September 2.

About 61% of Israelis have been given two doses, Bloomberg reports. Israel was the first country that took a step towards reopening the society and economy back in April. Around 100,000 Israelis are getting inoculated every day, the vast majority of them with a third shot. 

“If you are able to maintain life without lockdown, and to avoid very high numbers of hospitalizations and death, then this is what life with Covid looks like,” said Eyal Leshem, a professor specializing in infectious diseases at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Ha-Shomer.

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As per Israel’s Health ministry, as of September 6, around 28% of the population had the booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that the government’s Covid-19 booster vaccination drive will help allow the country to avoid a full lockdown during the coming Jewish holiday season.