Yeah, I was just noticing that Time to Herd has Isreal reaching Herd (70% vaccinated*) 179 days from now. I thought they’d already reached >70%. Are they just not reporting data?
*Yes, I’m aware that we don’t know what percent of the population needs to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity from Covid, but 70% is a useful target at this time.
They have a lot of kids too young to be eligible, and i think the Bloomberg number includes the occupied Palestinians, who are mostly not being offered vaccine. That seems really dumb of Israel, IMHO.
According to Reuters, they are actually above 80% for the over 16 living in Israel.
That’s a really excellent number at this early date, but they’ve still slowed down to almost nothing. Are the other 20% not willing?
That does seem rather unwise, but I’ll not belabor it in this thread (or forum, as it could get political real fast).
I’m not sure how the ultra conservative population is taking to the vaccine but I’ve heard some bad things about complying with mitigation efforts. Some decent percentage of the younger citizens could be waiting for the second shot.
Then I hope that 81% is enough (and it very well may be, although I wouldn’t bet lives on it).
Yeah, i spent some time trying to match the Bloomberg number in the denominator with the population of Israel per various published sources, when i first noticed the rate slowing. I’m pretty certain the difference is kids and Palestinians. That’s probably worth it’s own thread if we don’t already have one.
Pretty much. While there are anti-vaxxers everywhere, the largest concentrations of holdouts seem to be among ultra-Orthodox Jews and among Israeli Arabs; the government has been pushing hard to get headway among these populations. There are also several court rulings pending that may allow employers to terminate workers who refuse to vaccinate, for cause. That might make some impact, especially if the government starts firing people.
As for the Palestinians… it’s a complex situation, legally and otherwise, with no easy answer. Just note that there are lots of them, and vaccinating them would cost Israel hundreds of millions of dollars - and as the Israeli health services have no infrastructure in the Territories, there’s no way to get vaccines to them other than handing them over to the notably corrupt Palestinian Authority. I’m not sure the Palestinian public would accept vaccines from Israel, anyway; there’s isn’t a high level of trust between the parties involved.
Sorry to hear that there are that many holdouts, but I’m pretty sure in places like America, where we seem to embrace the idiocracy, we’d be shocked if we could get to 81%. Here’s hoping it’s enough!
There’s one born every minute. Scammer, that is.
142,017,465 total cases
3,033,003 dead
120,554,503 recovered
In the US:
32,404,454 total cases
581,061 dead
24,961,229 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Half! 
I had a hard time to find matching statistics for the UK but it looks as though (for over 18s):
30% of the population is fully vaccinated
60% of the population has one dose
Huh, that’s more than I thought.
On the Johns Hopkins site, only Puerto Tico, among US states and territories, has hit a new record high (seven-day average, as of yesterday). The other states, including Michigan, have retreated from their record highs, and even ones with rising levels aren’t going very fast.
On the other hand, India is just barely short of the record high the US posted back in January, and I expect them to set a new record in a day or so.
Furthermore, the world’s number of daily recorded cases is also just barely shy of the record high from a few months previously.
So maybe we could use a “overseas destinations plans for opening to vaccinated tourists” thread that covers multiple countries, but a friend in Thailand just forwarded this proposal from the Thai government for opening tourism. All I have is this map:
So (if I’m reading this right) basically for some tourist areas, vaccinated tourists would be able to not quarantine, but be restricted to the area they are visiting for 7 days; afterward they could go anywhere in Thailand. They would need to have a negative covid test on arrival and install a track/trace app on their phone. I figured at least @Siam_Sam would find this interesting, and perhaps we should have an omnibus thread for all countries opening to vaccinated tourists.
FWIW, I think the dates in that chart are fairly ambitious, since Thailand is in the middle of a big breakout in cases. I’d assume the areas open to tourists would need to have virtually all Thai residents vaccinated for this plan to work.
More bad news for Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
FDA has stopped production of J&J vaccine at Emergent Biosolutions after inspecting.
I talked to a friend today who has had one dose of the J&J vaccine, and now, of course, the second dose won’t be coming. Does anyone know if someone in her situation can just start over with the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines with dose #1, then dose #2? (She didn’t know and hadn’t had a chance to ask her PCP.)
J&J is just one dose I think.
Jnj is one dose. No more shots are needed.