Nothing is being left to chance as far as the vaccination of the Israeli public is concerned. Millions of doses have already been ordered from all four manufacturers who seem close to the goal — Pfizer, Moderna, Astra-Zeneca and even the Russian Sputnik vaccine. If all of them are proven effective, Israel already has more than enough doses on order to inoculate its nine million citizens. But it’s still unclear when the American and British vaccines will be authorised for use and it will take time for large numbers of doses to be shipped and then administered.
It is a race against time between the vaccines and a third wave of Covid-19 infections predicted by Israel’s public health experts. On Wednesday, Health Ministry director general Dr Hezi Levi announced that there will be no national lockdown for Channukah in a fortnight. Things may change but, for now at least, it doesn’t look like a surge in new cases is about to happen quite yet. The daily rate of new cases has remained stable for the last couple of weeks at around 800 — high but manageable. So is the R rate, which hovers at around 1.
Last week, Britain announced for the first time that Israel had been added to the “travel corridor,” meaning that arrivals from Israel are no longer required to self-isolate for two weeks. The decision is based largely on the low proportion of positive results in Israeli covid testing. But Israeli experts are still convinced that the third wave is just around the corner and will almost certainly crash down before the vaccination drive begins.
As always with coronavirus, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that vaccine policy is being politicised. From the first weeks of the pandemic, Benjamin Netanyahu sought to associate himself with the vaccines, repeatedly proclaiming that he had ordered the scientists at the Ness Ziona biological institute to develop Israel’s own, before everyone else.
But Ness Ziona has other fields of expertise and Brilife — the Israeli vaccine — is just starting its clinical trials, lagging far behind the competitors. And even if proven effective, Israel has no vaccine manufacturing capabilities and the cost of setting these up would be prohibitive. Making vaccines affordable is all about economy of scale and makes little sense in a small country. So Mr Netanyahu has stopped talking about the homegrown vaccines and has taken instead to making daily video statements about his phone calls to the CEOs of global pharmaceutical companies, personally placing orders for millions of doses.
He has a clear personal interest in the matter. In recent months Likud has taken a clobbering in the polls over what a majority of Israelis see as the prime minister’s mishandling of the pandemic. The sooner Israel has widespread vaccination, the sooner Mr Netanyahu can hope to regain his foothold in the polls. But his defence minister, alternate prime minister and rival Benny Gantz is threatening to leave the coalition if Mr Netanyahu doesn’t hurry up and pass a new state budget. Blue and White may even vote next week for a motion being brought by their former partners Yesh Atid to dissolve the Knesset and hold a fourth election in two years.
Mr Netanyahu wants an early election. It’s his only hope of avoiding the agreement to “rotate” the prime minister’s job with Mr Gantz next November and perhaps finally obtaining a Knesset majority for immunity laws. But not quite yet. The risk-averse prime minister doesn’t want to hold a campaign while too many factors are beyond his control — a third wave of Covid-19, a new and much less friendly US administration coming in on January 20, followed two weeks later by the resumption of his corruption trial in the Jerusalem District Court as the witnesses for the prosecution begin taking the stand.
The Knesset has to pass the 2021 budget by March. That is a much better exit point for Mr Netanyahu. By then he will have a better idea of the new administration’s intentions, how his court case is proceeding and, most crucially, Israelis will already have started being jabbed with the vaccine. Mr Gantz is trying to force him to decide next week.
