Coronavirus Vaccinations Kicks off in Israel

Coronavirus vaccination campaign began, Sunday, in Israel, following the vaccination of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein on Saturday night.

Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz is also scheduled to be vaccinated on Sunday. Also President Reuven Rivlin at Hadassah-University Medical Center, and coronavirus commissioner Prof. Nachman Ash at a Maccabi health clinic in Herzliya will also join Gantz.

Science and Technology Minister Izhar Shay said upon receiving the vaccine: “The vaccines are already here,” encouraging all Israeli citizens to get vaccinated.

“If we all mobilize, the plague could be behind us soon. I call on all Israeli citizens: Get vaccinated! These vaccines have gone through all the required process and are safe to use,” Shay asserted. “It is a great victory for science and humanity.”

Former chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and Finance Minister Israel Katz, were vaccinated following a musical performance by Ivri Lider, where doctors and nurses danced.

“There is no difference between right and left, religious and less, Arabs and Jews,” Lau said his remark as the coronavirus has attacked everyone equally.

Edelstein received the vaccine, alongside Clalit Healthcare director-general Ehud Dodson at Heichal Shlomo in Tel Aviv.

“Yesterday I was vaccinated, I feel great,”  Edelstein said. “Thanks to the efforts of the Prime Minister, myself and the Health Ministry we moved forward with the vaccines.”

“We as the State of Israel are in a special situation. We are aware that there will be glitches, because it is impossible to carry out an operation of millions of vaccinations without a glitch here and there, he added. “I ask everyone for patience and come and get vaccinated. Only then can we return to the routine we knew.”

“Clalit is preparing and setting out today for the great national campaign for coronavirus vaccines that will free us from the difficult period we have been experiencing for almost a year,” Dodson said. “We are embarking on a deployment of dozens of centers around the country in the coming week.”

While more senior physicians and other hospital staff were vaccinated at the event, it is believed that  about 82% of doctors plan to be vaccinated.

“We are coming to this vaccine with the understanding and hope that it will end this cursed pandemic,” said Zeev Feldman, president of the association. “We are determined to end this. The only way to do that is to vaccinate.”

On his part, Coronavirus commissioner Professor Nachman Ash published a letter on N12, in which he encouraged the public to get the vaccine as soon as possible.

"In coronavirus vaccines, instead of injecting an entire virus into the body, we insert a code that activates the cell to create a single protein, against which the formation of antibodies protects us from the virus," Ash indicated to N12.

"The code in the form of the mRNA is quickly eliminated from the body, and what is left are the antibodies and immune cells that remember the virus and will work against it - ingenious, effective, safe."

Ash added that "fear of developing diseases that will appear in a few years has no basis," arguing that getting vaccinated is better than the alternative of getting infected.

He closed his statement by urging the public to "run and get vaccinated" to "live a life free from the limitations that we all hate."