Beautiful Virgin Islands

Saturday, Oct 04, 2025

How Israel got vaccines to 9% of its population in less than 2 weeks – far more than any other country

How Israel got vaccines to 9% of its population in less than 2 weeks – far more than any other country

The country's small size, population density, and centralized, digitally savvy healthcare system has enabled it to distribute vaccines quickly.

Israel is far ahead of any other country in administering COVID-19 vaccines.

As of Thursday, the nation had administered 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, meaning approximately 8.84% of its 9 million residents have gotten their first dose, according to Bloomberg's vaccine tracker. Health providers in Israel are administering doses to about 150,000 people per day.

Yonatan Adiri, who served as Chief Technology Officer to former Israeli president Shimon Peres, said he expects Israel will have "a fully vaccinated population" by the end of March. Adiri is now the CEO of Israeli health technology startup Healthy.io. He added that completing vaccinations for higher-risk groups should happen sooner — hopefully by the end of February.

"We expect 10% of the population to be vaccinated by this weekend, which will constitute 50% of all those at high risk and group #1," Adiri told Business Insider.

By contrast, the US had administered about 3.1 million vaccine doses by Thursday, covering .95% of its total population. The UK had administered doses to about 1.4% of its population.

Israel has some innate advantages relative to other countries that have approved vaccines. Its population is small and dense, so vaccines don't have to travel too far. But the country also has a digitized, vertically integrated healthcare system that has enabled it to distribute vaccines quickly to vulnerable groups.

Israel has already secured enough doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for all of its residents to receive at least an initial shot, and for the majority of the population to receive the full two doses.

Netanyahu personally called Pfizer at 2 a.m.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets ready to receive a coronavirus vaccine on December 19, 2020.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been criticized for some of his decisions during the pandemic, including a premature reopening over the summer that led to a major outbreak and triggered a second lockdown. So far, more than 423,000 Israelis have had been diagnosed with COVID-19, and 3,300 have died.

Anxious to beat back the virus and return Israel to normal before his upcoming March election, Netanyahu personally reached out to Pfizer chief executive Albert Bourla multiple times this fall. At one point, he bragged that he spoke to the CEO at 2 a.m., according to the Associated Press.

So far, that effort seems to have worked. Israel has secured 8 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It has also reached a separate deal with Moderna for 6 million shots. That's enough for 7 million people to receive two shots — about 77% of the Israeli population. Or it's enough for 4 million to receive a single shot, and 5 million to receive both. Only a handful of other nations have secured more total doses of both vaccines, including the US, the UK, Japan, and Canada.

If Israel continues to vaccinate residents at its current rate, it could provide the entire population with an initial dose in about two months. It's possible that single dose may provide significant protection on its own, according to Dr. Chris Gill, an infectious-disease specialist at Boston University.

Gill told WBUR that a single dose of Pfizer's vaccine may be 80 to 90% effective, based on the Phase 3 trial data collected between patients' first and second doses. Pfizer, however, says it does not have data to support the efficacy of a single dose.

Moderna, meanwhile, collected data from patients who only received one dose of the vaccine; that data showed that a single dose could be 80 to 90% effective.

"After 14 days, the [single dose] vaccine is remarkably effective," Gill told WBUR.

The FDA has struck a more cautious note about single-dosing for both vaccines, saying, "there appears to be some protection against COVID-19 disease following one dose."

But even if a single dose doesn't wind up being effective in preventing COVID-19, Israel could reach herd immunity in just a few months.

A digitally savvy, universal healthcare system


Israel's vertically integrated, government-sponsored healthcare system has helped its vaccine rollout. All Israelis over 18 must register with an insurance agency backed by the government, and the system is funded by a progressive tax so that almost 70% of Israelis receive unconditional, free care. Community health centers can be found within 10 minutes of most Israelis, and those centers are being used as vaccine distribution hubs.

Israel's national healthcare system is "globally recognized as a leader" in providing care and information digitally, according to The Wall Street Journal. Adiri said he has helped elderly parents figure out how to get their vaccines on a smartphone app. The app, he said, provides Israelis with their personal health information, including medical history, and allows them to make appointments online – including for COVID-19 vaccines.

"I opened the app and it was asking me, 'where would you want to get vaccinated?'" he said, adding, "I set my [parents'] first appointment and they told me, 'you've been allotted a Pfizer vaccine at a designated location,' and automatically scheduled a second-dose appointment."

On his own phone, the app wouldn't let Adiri make an appointment because he's not over 60, he said.

"We're not the most orderly country in the world. We're not Singapore," he said. "That said, the correlation between the facts, the people getting vaccinated, and the policy, shows the execution is really really in line with the epidemiological logic and policy-maker's assigned priorities."

Palestinians are still waiting to receive vaccines

Palestinian workers check medical equipment donated by the International Committee of the Red Cross at Kerem Shalom crossing in the Gaza Strip, April 21, 2020.


Israel's vaccine successes, however, do not extend Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestinians have just one mobile refrigeration unit in Jericho capable of storing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to Al Jazeera. Human-rights groups have called on the country to allocate vaccines for Palestinians and provide logistical support for distribution.

"Israel bears moral and humanitarian responsibility for vaccinating the Palestinian population under its control," Physicians for Human Rights said on December 16, according to The Washington Post.

Israel has said it could may provide surplus doses of its vaccines to Palestinians. Still, Gerald Rockenschaub, the head of the WHO office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said it could be "early to mid-2021" before Palestinian territories receive vaccine doses.

Palestine has seen more than 138,000 COVID-19 cases for a population of about 5.1 million. At least 1,400 Palestinian people have died.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×