To me it is utter insanity that Israel is scrambling to find some country to accept a million plus doses of Pfizer. Israel has over 5 million people who have accepted 2 doses of Pfizer already. Giving them a 3rd dose would almost certainly increase their protection against "mild" Covid (which often isn't all that mild), decrease the rate at which the vaccinated transmit to others and perhaps eliminate some of those pesky breakthrough cases which turn severe or result in death.
@Infoseepage I think it's a good idea to give it to other countries who need it a lot more than to people for a 3rd shot. If the virus mutates even more in the poorer countries, it'll be so different that even a 3rd shot will be ineffective. This is a worldwide problem.
@trinsec Some countries have signed no-export agreements with the drug makers and some countries like the US are awash in vaccine doses that few of the remaining unvaccinated seem to want to take. At this point, rather than letting those doses spoil, imo we should start getting them into arms as booster doses for J&J and for those who've had 2 doses of Pfizer or Moderna. This may significantly reduce onward transmission, symptomatic presentation, etc. among the already vaccinated.
@Infoseepage Mmm, agreed that you're better off using it as an extra booster shot than to let it spoil...
But damn, that they're close to letting it spoil is already very bad mojo to begin with. There are plenty of countries screaming for vaccines. I think that does paint Israel in a negative light for not donating their extras.
Is Israel facing a new lockdown now, btw? I understand they have the highest percentage of people vaccinated (or one of the highest), but the virus is starting to spread there again?
@trinsec So far new hospitalizations have stayed very low, but those tend to be lagging indicators, particularly given the newness of this latest outbreak.
They've currently got 60.5% of their overall population 1 shot vaccinated and 55.6% both shots. That is certainly high, but not nearly high enough to run a restriction-less society given the much greater contagiousness of Delta. The UK has 66+% one shot and 50+% two shots and obviously has a massive outbreak.
@trinsec Israel tried to give the doses to the PLA and the PLA turned them down, saying they were two close to expiration. Pfizer has said they should be good through the end of June. They tried to arrange a swap with the UK where they would give the UK the doses now in exchange for doses the UK was to get later. Sounds like that fell through.
@trinsec Vaccine uptake in Israel has risen lately and they had a streak of 20k dose days. Demand for the vaccine slumped to under a thousand doses a day once Israel's case numbers began to drop rapidly. I think a lot of people were of the attitude of "why should I get vaccinated/vaccinate my kid when all these other people have done so for me?"
@trinsec Still, even if they could maintain 20k doses a day they aren't going to get close to using up all those ~1.4m doses. My guess is there are a lot of elderly people who got vaccinated 6 months ago who would really love a 3rd shot booster right about now...
If nothing else, it would be a great proving ground for boosting with the shots already in manufacture, especially as they would be administered in a country where enough challenge events would occur to prove efficacy.
@trinsec They aren't in lockdown. They rolled back almost all their preventative measure right as Delta entered their country. Cases went up very quickly. They were down to a low of 13 cases a day and are now at 300. They've reimplemented their indoor mask mandate, but not their green pass system.