First Time Daily COVID-19 Deaths Drop to Zero in Israel

Israel has been able to record no new daily active confirmed death caused by the COVID-19 infection for the first time in the past 10 months, as the government of the country is also pushing forward with a rapid vaccination drive. The COVID-19 death toll of the country has remained unchanged and is currently on 6,346 since Thursday, according to the data shown by the health ministry of Israel.

Removal of lockdown restrictions

The last time when Israel reported the COVID-19 deaths as zero for an entire day wash at the end of the month of June in the previous year amid the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, as the nationwide measures of lockdown helped in curbing the local transmission of infection. By following preventive protocols, the country now has no new daily COVID-19 deaths.

The government of Israel has now begun to relax the protective restrictions of lockdown a month after the COVID-19 vaccinations were being rolled out throughout the country on a wider scale. Israel has become the country with their highest rate of vaccination across the world and a very limited number of COVID-19 deaths. On Thursday, the country of Israel has been able to reach its milestone of vaccinating around five million individuals against coronavirus infection.

According to the health ministry of Israel, more than 53% of the general population of the country, out of nine million individuals, have been able to receive both doses of the viable coronavirus vaccine.

The Health Minister of Israel Yuli Edelstein tweeted from his account on Friday that this has been a wonderful accomplishment for the entire health care system of the country along with its citizens, as together they are trying to eradicate the viral infection from Israel.

In the previous week, the director of the largest hospital of Israel Sheba Medical Center, Eyal Leshem, stated that the country might be close to reaching herd immunity while the COVID-19 deaths are coming to the bare minimum.

Herd immunity is achieved when a major part of the general population of a region has protection against infection, thus resulting in limiting the spread of infection.

According to the experts of the World Health Organization, it has been estimated that at least 60-70% of the general population requires to be vaccinated before the herd immunity would be reached, and would almost eradicate the infection along with COVID-19 deaths.

Mr. Leshem stated that herd immunity is the only explanation for the continued reduction in the number of cases in Israel as the protective restrictions are being lifted. There has been a continuous reduction despite the routines, which are returning back to normal. This tells us that even if an individual gets infected, most of the people around him whom he would meet won’t get infected by him.

The vaccination campaign by Israel began in the month of December last year, and since then, the country has become the leading nation worldwide for the number of injected doses per person of the general population, consequently resulting in declining in COVID-19 deaths inside the country.

Vaccination in Israel

Israel has been so far relying on the two-shot coronavirus vaccine, which has been developed by the joint collaboration of pharmaceutical firm Pfizer and BioNTech, which has limited the number of COVID-19 deaths across the country. In the month of February, the health minister of Israel said that the recently conducted studies have revealed that the risk of developing illness from the coronavirus virus has dropped almost 95.8% among individuals who have been administered both doses of the vaccine manufactured by Pfizer.

The country is currently is preparing to start the process of administration of coronavirus vaccine in children between the age group of 12 to 15 years as soon as the United States Food and Drug Administration provides approval of the vaccine injection in that age bracket.

While Israel is currently surging ahead with its program for COVID-19 vaccination, the Palestinian territories are lagging behind on schedule. In the month of March, the Palestinians have been able to receive the initial shipment of around 60,000 vaccines vials under the international Covax vaccine-sharing scheme.

Israel has become one of the top countries to vaccinate its general population against the COVID-19 infection and has been able to reduce the COVID-19 deaths to almost none across the country. The government of Israel bought a massive amount of vaccine shots in exchange to work as the guinea pig of the world.

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