Health Minister Yuli Edelstein expresses optimism about the vaccination campaign and says that any Israeli who wants to be inoculated will be able to by the end of March. However, he adds that with current infection numbers skyrocketing, “there is no avoiding a full-blown lockdown, including closing schools.”
A lockdown entered effect last week but has been slammed as ineffective and full of holes, such as the education system and workplaces remaining open and a lack of enforcement.
“We’re going through a very severe outbreak and are probably in a more dire situation than we were in at the beginning of September,” Edelstein says in Nazareth during a tour of vaccination centers in the country’s north.
“We will demand a full-blown lockdown for two weeks. We need to deal one strong blow to morbidity rates and embark on a new path together,” he says.
He says the Arab community is starting to catch up to the rest of the country in vaccination rates.
Edelstein claims that 10% of all vaccines given in the world thus far have been in Israel.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
— Gabriella Jacobs, multimedia journalist
Support our work
Support our work
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
From the Liveblog of
Sunday, January 3, 2021
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
