Health Minister Yuli Edelstein announced that Israel has vaccinated about half a million Israelis in the nine days since the start of Israel’s vaccine campaign, with over 115,000 Israelis vaccinated on Monday alone.

With 495,000 Israelis vaccinated as of Tuesday morning, the number of those vaccinated exceeds the number of Israeli infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, which currently stands at 408,990.

Edelstein said that he hopes that Israel can vaccinate the entire at-risk population in the coming weeks.

יותר מתחסנים מחולים: אתמול חוסנו למעלה מ 115,00 אזרחים. בסך הכל הגענו לכ 495,000 מחוסנים עד עכשיו. ב 9 ימי חיסונים יש לנו יותר מתחסנים מכל הנדבקים מתחילת המגפה. לא סתם אנחנו המדינה המובילה בעולם במהירות ההתחסנות. ממשיכים לחסן את ישראל! pic.twitter.com/3wRQKA9KYy

— Yuli Edelstein 🇮🇱 יולי אדלשטיין (@YuliEdelstein) December 29, 2020

All those who were vaccinated must receive a second shot of the vaccine 21 days after the initial one and a week after the second jab are expected to have a sufficient amount of antibodies to be protected against COVID-19.

According to a Channel 12 News report on Monday evening, Israel currently has 3.2 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses, enough to vaccinate 1.6 million Israelis and a shipment of another 600,000 Pfizer vaccines is expected in the coming days. Another 4 million Pfizer doses are expected in February as well a million Moderna does.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said his goal is to vaccinate about 2.25 million Israelis by the end of January – close to 25% of Israel’s 9.1 million residents.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)