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Tel Aviv (dpa) - Israel has significantly higher corona infections per capita than Germany.
Nevertheless, in the country with its around nine million inhabitants, the lockdown can only be extended by one week.
The reason: The rapid vaccination campaign shows encouraging signals.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first Israeli to be vaccinated on December 19.
A quarter of the population was vaccinated within a month.
Experts attribute this to the digitized health system, among other things.
In addition, the government secured a large amount of the vaccine from the manufacturers Biontech and Pfizer at an early stage.
This was achieved in numerous phone calls between Netanyahu and the Pfizer boss, as the head of government repeatedly emphasized.
Elections will take place in Israel at the end of March.
The country is reportedly paying more than usual for the vaccine, but it has laid the groundwork for the vaccination campaign.
Their success - on a per capita basis, no country vaccinates faster - prompts the company to cooperate with the country.
The deal, in a nutshell, is a vaccine for data.
At the beginning of the year, Netanyahu announced that enough doses would be delivered in the coming weeks to offer a vaccination to anyone aged 16 and over by the end of March.
This is accompanied by the observation of the effectiveness of the still young preparation under real conditions.
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The first preliminary results are encouraging: Clalit, one of the largest health insurance companies in the country, compared a group of 200,000 vaccinated people over the age of 60 with an equally large group of non-vaccinated people.
According to this, the number of infected people in the vaccinated group was already 33 percent lower than in the non-vaccinated group two weeks after the first dose.
Clalit's Chief Medical Officer, Ran Balicer, speaks of an "encouraging result that shows that the vaccine is also effective in older people."
He therefore expects that the number of seriously ill corona patients will decrease shortly.
No special tests were initiated, but the test groups only "observed in real life," he explains.
The results affect people from both groups who had to take corona tests for various reasons.
Other studies had even better results: the Maccabi health insurance company reported 60 percent fewer infections two weeks after the first dose, and a senior employee of the Ministry of Health spoke of 50 percent fewer positive test results after this period.
In addition, the health insurances in Israel report mostly mild side effects.
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In the collaboration with Pfizer, Israel serves as a “model country”, said Israeli epidemiologist Nadav Davidovitch last week in an online conference on fighting pandemics in Israel, Germany and Sweden.
However, he emphasizes that the vaccination campaign with the Biontech Pfizer vaccine is "not an experiment".
Israel is currently undertaking a "Post Marketing Surveillance" (surveillance study after approval), "like any other country".
It is morally appropriate to share vaccination information with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Pfizer.
According to the company, the data make it possible to monitor the course of the pandemic over the longer term with different vaccination rates.
In this way it can also be investigated whether a possible decrease in the number of cases and deaths can be attributed to vaccination protection alone or both - direct protection and herd immunity.
Pfizer stresses that the findings are applicable worldwide and could help governments finally overcome the pandemic.
Israel's renowned Democracy Institute (IDI) criticized the agreement.
Institute member Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler complained, for example, that one should have obtained the consent of the Israelis in order to be able to use their health data.
The epidemiologist Davidovitch defended himself against accusations.
“People accuse us of wanting to sell the information, but that's not true,” says the researcher.
"We have the responsibility - like Germany, like other countries - to share the data, for example about side effects."
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An approach that Lothar Wieler shares.
Germany maintains close ties with Israel during the crisis, says the President of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in the online conference.
“Throughout the pandemic, we have exchanged views at all times so that we can learn from each other.
We have to share our ideas and exchange ideas. "
The European heads of state and government will have the opportunity to exchange ideas next Thursday.
Then they want to advise on a vaccination strategy.
With Israel as a role model?
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210118-99-75415 / 2
Corona figures from the Israeli Ministry of Health
Our World in Data
Biontech Q + A about its vaccine
Professor Ran Balicer on Twitter