Quarter Of Israelis Receives Second Dose Of COVID-19 Vaccine

More than a quarter of Israel’s 9.3 million citizens have received the second dose of the U.S.-German Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19, Israel’s health minister said on Sunday.

Some 3,832,000 Israelis have been inoculated against the coronavirus, of whom almost 2.5 million have already received the second dose, Yuli Edelstein wrote on Twitter.

Calling on other Israelis to get inoculated as well, he wrote: “and what about you? Will you get to go to the gym and culture performances, or stay behind? Go get vaccinated!’’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet was scheduled to meet in the afternoon to discuss the possible lifting of more restrictions, as Israel is gradually emerging from its third lockdown.

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Tensions between Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party, and Defence Minister Benny Gantz of the centrist Blue and White faction, have peaked since their strained emergency unity government collapsed late in December.

This prompted early parliamentary elections in March 23 for the fourth time in only two years.

Gantz demands lifting restrictions sooner, while Netanyahu urges caution.

It has taken far longer than expected for the effect of the biggest vaccination campaign in Israel’s history to be felt, likely due to what appears to be a more aggressive and more contagious coronavirus variant that originated in Britain.

Israel has seen 5,368 COVID-19-related deaths since the novel virus reached the Mediterranean country in 2019.