Israel was one of the first countries to mass vaccinate with Fizzer now they're considering more lockdowns as cases increase they're back to wearing masks. The Israelis are also going for a 3rd shot of Pfizer it appears the first 2 don't work.
For some reason our politicians think mass vaccination is the solution to the Kung Flu.
First to vaccinate and first to party, Israel now mulls lockdowns
One of the most vaccinated nations in the world is a test case for how Delta will play out. So far, it’s not pretty
This June, as I packed for a trip to London, I realised I couldn’t find a single mask in my house, nor in any of the stores by my house in Tel Aviv.
It had been months since anyone had needed one in Israel, one of the fastest- and most-vaccinated nations in the world. By mid-March, Israelis were partying as lockdowns ended and by April, masks had more or less vanished, turning the tiny country into a tantalising glimpse of a post-pandemic future.
“Why do you want a mask? Corona is over,” chuckled my neighbourhood grocery store grandma, as she handed me a half-empty bag of masks she found in the back as I rushed to the airport.
A month later, as I returned from London after my own bout of Covid-19 — one of the earlier breakthrough cases of the fully vaccinated catching the Delta variant — masks were everywhere.
So was coronavirus. From a few dozen daily cases in early June — even zero on June 9 — new Covid infections twice hovered near 6,000 this week, the highest daily rate in six months.
Having won early access to supplies of the BioNTech/Pfizer jab in exchange for sharing nationwide data on how mass vaccination drives affect the pandemic, Israel is a closely watched indicator for where well-inoculated developed economies are heading.
After months of euphoria, the data out of Israel is troubling. The Israeli ministry of health has twice revised downwards the long-term efficacy of the jabs — from the advertised 94 per cent protection from asymptomatic infections against the then-dominant Alpha variant, to as low as 64 per cent against the now-dominant Delta variant.
As new infections soared, so did the long tail of hospitalisations. Even though the unvaccinated were five to six times as likely to end up seriously ill, the vaccine’s protection was waning fastest for the oldest — the most vulnerable — who got their first jabs as early as December.
At this rate, health officials predicted at least 5,000 people would need hospital beds by early September, half of them with serious medical needs, twice as many as Israel is equipped to handle.
https://www.ft.com/content/c21e2053-0373-4b8e-80b7-fad10f235604?shareType=nongif...