Health minister: Moderna vaccines won’t arrive for 2 months

5 January 2021, 1:50 pm

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Health Minister Yuli Edelstein predicts the first batches of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine won’t arrive in Israel for another two months, as he again calls for tightening lockdown measures to curb surging infections.

Moderna announced overnight that Israel approved its vaccine for use in the country. Both the Massachusetts-based biotech firm and the director-general of the Health Ministry said they expected doses to reach Israel by the end of January.

But, “we don’t know anything about moving up [the delivery] of the Moderna vaccines,” Edelstein says during a press conference. “Unfortunately only in two months will we see the shipments.”