Israel's Vaccination Drive Reduces Covid Cases Among Older Citizens (bloomberg.com) 71
Israel's vaccination drive has reduced confirmed Covid-19 cases among older Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday. From a report: Netanyahu cited a 45% drop in confirmed cases and a 26% decline in hospitalizations of seriously ill patients among people age 60 and older in the past 16 days. Israel's vaccination drive, which began in late December, started with this age group, and more than 80% have had at least one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Further reading: Israel Is Now The First Country Where Vaccinations Are Starting To Curb The Pandemic.
Guess which citizens aren't getting vaccinated? (Score:2, Informative)
Go ahead. Guess. https://www.bbc.com/news/55800... [bbc.com]
Re:Guess which citizens aren't getting vaccinated? (Score:5, Informative)
Palestinians are not even citizens. They don't have their own country, but are not considered citizens by Israel. They can't move freely, can't vote.
Not to be confused with arab-israelis, which are full citizens.
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And yet they pay taxes. Curious.
Re:Guess which citizens aren't getting vaccinated? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Guess which citizens aren't getting vaccinated? (Score:4, Interesting)
Ah, but the rub is those taxes are controlled by the Israeli government, which refuses to hand them over for any use that it disapproves of. Purchase of SARS2 vaccines are one of the unapproved uses, along with equipment to repair the potable water plant and the desalination plant that Israeli jets bombed. It's nothing less than biological warfare against the Palestinians.
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Ah, but the rub is those taxes are controlled by the Israeli government, which refuses to hand them over for any use that it disapproves of. Purchase of SARS2 vaccines are one of the unapproved uses
Got any sources for that?
Re:Guess which citizens aren't getting vaccinated? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's curious that you provided no reference, because your statement, while technically correct, is misleading. Israel collects taxes from the Palestinians but transfers the results to the Palestinian Authority on a monthly basis [wikipedia.org].
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So what you're saying is Israel has put these people into a camp, a ghetto if you will, and is oppressing the people therein. I know if that were happening to me I'd be going after the occupiers using smuggled in weapons and explosives.
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Nope. Israel did not put them there. They were there when Israel fought Syria and Jordan in 1967 and took control of the territory. Since the Arabs never wanted to be Israeli, nor wanted their land to be part of Israel, they got stuck. Jordan doesn't want them anymore, and neither does Israel.
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Nope. Israel did not put them there.
They (or at least the ancestors of a lot of them) were not there in 1947. Where were they?
Jordan doesn't want them anymore, and neither does Israel.
Jordan had only one other choice, which was to try to recapture the occupied territories. Discretion may be the better part of valour or something, but that Jordan chose discretion did not make what Israel did right.
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Since the Arabs never wanted to be Israeli, nor wanted their land to be part of Israel, they got stuck. Jordan doesn't want them anymore, and neither does Israel.
Since the Japanese never wanted to be Israeli, nor wanted their land to be part of Israel, they got stuck. Wait, they didn't. They got their fully sovereign and internationally-recognized state. Why wouldn't it be the same for Palestine?
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Both Palestine and Israel agree to stop attacking when it gets full control of the other. But anyways, only Israel has a seat at the UN. Only Palestine is asked to drop all weapons, give up control on air space and borders, before we can start talking about giving them a real state.
This conflict lasted for too long. Time to kick Israel out of Palestine (including East Jerusalem and west bank settlements), organize elections in all of Palestine to get them a working government and give full control of the ne
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Sorry you're misinformed... they do have their own country..recognised by the UN and all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ...it's just illegally occupied while the invader performs ethnic cleansing via settler settlements.
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It's not recognized by the UN, at least not fully, because it is not a member state. But I was referring to Israel's position, which is that Palestine is not an independent state, it is in large parts controlled by Israel, and yet people living there are not citizens of Israel.
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Palestinians excluded from Israeli Covid vaccine rollout as jabs go to settlers https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
"Almost three decades later, Israeli, Palestinian and international rights groups have accused Israel of dodging moral, humanitarian and legal obligations as an occupying power during the pandemic.
Gisha, an Israeli rights group, said Palestinian efforts so far to look elsewhere for vaccines “does not absolve Israel from its ultimate responsibility toward Palest
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Settlers are still Israeli citizens, even if they choose to live outside Israel's borders. And, despite the condemnation that Israel routinely faces, it is almost a certainty that it will provide doses to Palestinians, if only to protect Israelis from them.
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If the Israelis have been vaccinated why do they need further protection from sick Palestinians? Netenyahoo has already said that they're not got to let the Palestinians be vaccinated, they won't even let them use their own taxes to purchase vaccines.
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they won't even let them use their own taxes to purchase vaccines.
Link from a reputable source would be appreciated.
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"The Palestinians who don't get the vaccines from Israel are not citizens"
As non citizens they are the responsibility of the Israeli government which follows from the occupation.
"Their health is the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority according to the Oslo accords"
Lots of issues. International law takes precedence. The Israeli government has probably not lived up to its obligations under the Oslo accord. And the accord itself says pandemics are an exception:
"there is a distinction between responsibi
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Here's an article that answers most of the points you raise:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora... [jpost.com]
However it is a little over a month old, here's something more recent:
The Palestinians have not publicly requested vaccines from Israel and say they are securing their own supplies through the WHO and contracts with pharmaceutical companies. The PA acknowledged the receipt of 2,000 doses on Monday — the first batch of vaccines sent by Israel — but did not say where they came from.
https://apnews.com/article/isr... [apnews.com]
So basically the Palestinians are not interested in anything coming from Israel, and won't even acknowledge what they do receive. This is pretty much the limit of the level of "cooperation" that can be expected.
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Thanks for the links.
My take away:
Talks on everything between the Israeli government (the occupying force) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have stalled since forever. Israel uses that again to not fulfill it's duties in accordance with international law. The PA has accepted everything Israel has given so far: 5100 vaccines. That being obviously insufficient and a token gesture, Russia and the WHO will be stepping in to help the PA secure enough vaccines.
Sadly, after all these years the occupying force st
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And yet, there are Israelis in the occupied territories, those who live in the illegal settlements, and they are getting vaccinated.
In Israel itself, the Arab-Israelis are citizens but also second class citizens in many ways.
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Sure they are "entitled to be vaccinated," but are they?
I don't have to pretend, Israel are the bad guys. Note, I have nothing against Jewish people. But just as I have serious issues with my own government, I have serious issues with Israel.
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The article you quote disagrees with your point. The Oslo Accords clearly state that the PA is responsible for health care. Further, the PA ignored repeated offers by the Israeli government to receive vaccines from Israel. Palestinians have no one to blame but their own government.
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What are you talking about? Palestine didn't refuse any vaccine. In fact they asked for vaccines and got 100 doses:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/... [timesofisrael.com]
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Early on the Palestinian leadership refused to talk to Israel when Israel was ordering vaccine doses and would not coordinate any form of rollout operation. The PA is responsible for vaccinating their people as per the Oslo accord. This failure falls on the PA.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora... [jpost.com]
Please correlate death statistics (Score:2)
Because technically, an older person who died because of the vaccine will not increase the COVID stats.
Not that I'm suggesting the vaccine is deadly of course, It's just a joke. I'm not an anti-vaxxer because I went to school.
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Fun part. This is correct, and not in the way your rather bad jokes implies.
Israel is #1 in the world in terms of "amount of doctors per population" and the main reason why they're #1 in the world right now in terms of vaccinations of their population is because they used their medical capabilities to assist in development of vaccines.
So yes, Jews have a lot of experience with medical experiments. And more than any other ethnicity when it comes to medical experiments related to this vaccine. They did the wo
Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
Reduces Covid Cases Among Older Citizens
To be fair, so does Covid.
60% (Score:3)
Today the last data from Israel dates from the 3 February and shows a 60% vaccination rate. Impressive: https://ourworldindata.org/cov... [ourworldindata.org]
Although it is just derived from a number of injections. Most of their citizens have just received their first injection and are not protected yet. They likely will be the first to reach herd immunity and from that point it will be interesting to see how the pandemic evolves there, if the variants cause trouble, etc...
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Maybe not fully protected, but initial numbers show that a single dose is still very effective starting from 2 weeks after injection. But I definitely wouldn't call it "not protected". I'd be glad to get even a single dose.
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First injection grants significant protection. To get full efficacy, you need the second booster dose.
More information ... (Score:4, Informative)
Here are more specific numbers from Israel, from this BBC article on Feb 1st [bbc.com] (emphasis mine):
So a total of 531/750000 were infected, and only 38/750000 were hospitalized.
Very good results indeed ...
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It appears to confirm the efficacy tests done for BioNTech/Pfizer, which is the part of the deal Israel has with Pfizer - to be a test bed country for efficacy testing of their vaccine on population level.
So far, so good.
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I'm sure it's just me, but I see the section you quoted...:
Here are more specific numbers from Israel: Israeli Ministry of Health (MoH) figures show 531 over-60s, out of almost 750,000 fully vaccinated, tested positive for coronavirus (0.07%).
...and the title of the "Further Reading", just under the summary: Israel Is Now The First Country Where Vaccinations Are Starting To Curb The Pandemic
When taken together I wonder if / when the next article will be entitled: Israel becomes ground zero for new Covid strain. Current vaccines ineffective.
</cynicism>
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Highly unlikely ...
For many reasons: How the immune system works (epitopes), rate of mutation for Coronaviruses, and efficacy of current vaccines against the UK variant, and (somewhat reduced) on the South Africa variant. The Brazil variant is not yet tested against current vaccines, but all other variants are susceptible enough.
In fact, it is quite the oppo
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Highly unlikely ...
Oh I agree. I was being somewhat facetious. While I haven't been following the infection rates or trends in Israel, or many other countries, I suspect it's far more likely that any strain that can bypass current vaccines will arise in the UK, the US, or a couple of other countries in Europe.
Basically any country that has a high infection rate, a significant proportion of vaccinated people, and mixing between the two groups would be the most likely source.
In fact, it is quite the opposite: where infections run rampant, is where more mutations happen and selection at work gives us new variants.
Read my article on Coronavirus Mutations, Variants, Epitopes, and Vaccine Efficacy [baheyeldin.com] for more.
Indeed, both the mutation rate, and selection pressur
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Regarding Israel, there is also this funeral [youtube.com]. Similar events happened in New York and Montreal too.
Don't think this will change the course of the pandemic in Israel though as vaccination is ramping up. Maybe some anti-vaxxer Orthodox will get infected, but it will subside.
Regarding vaccines and strains, it is looking good. Not only are vaccines partially effective against current strain, but of some good news I saw yesterday.
That news is that the FDA is gearing up for fast approval of "variant booster shots
It seems easy with smaller populations (Score:2)
"The current population of Israel is 8,730,701 as of Friday, January 22, 2021, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data."
8.7 million people is quite a few lass than the population of single cities in other countries...
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You are *so* last year, dude.
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Large countries need to vaccinate more people. But they also have more money to pay for vaccines, and more staff to administer them. So there shouldn't be any difference in the speed.
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It's Israel, if they didn't have the money to pay for vaccines they'd just snap their fingers and the US Congress would allot it tomorrow.
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In Israel, they paid premium to Pfizer for vaccines, agreed to be the ground zero for population level testing, allowed Pfizer direct access to their excellent national medical database and were the first in line to negotiate long before vaccine was ready.
I know, I know. It runs contrary to far left narrative of evil Jews in Israel that control US, and the far right narrative of evil Jews in Israel that control the US. You'll have to take my word for it.
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Oh, don't project your own racism on me. If you're happy to ignore history and corruption that's your problem, not mine.
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Do you realise that your previous post is still up and visible?
Actually, considering your posting history, you're probably so cognitively blinded by your biases that you genuinely cannot comprehend it.
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Of course I know the post is there, you've never been able to delete or hide posts on SlashDot. My comment had nothing to do with Jews or Judaism, nor antisemitism, it was a comment on the relationship between the US and Israeli governments. Are you so blinded by your own biases that you were unable to comprehend that?
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Remind me, what is the definitional feature of Israeli state?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Like I said, the narrative that unites the far left and far right. Evil Israeli Jews controlling US (far left)/the US (far right).
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So you're unable to separate in your mind the government of a country and the predominant (not only) religion? Sounds like a failing on your part, not mine. When you think of Bali do you immediately view everything through the lens of Islam because that's the dominant religion of the country? Or do only see things Hindu because that's the dominant religion of the island? Seems like a very limiting way to view the world, to me.
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I'll just add that I genuinely didn't enjoy my interactions with skinheads in my younger days, but I enjoyed them a lot more than I did this interaction with you.
Because while they shared your preferences, they at least didn't use silly word games to justify them to themselves like you do. It's pathetic.
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Being Prime Minister of Israel is like being 'Prime Minister' of Tokyo. About the same area and same population under your jurisdiction.
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Israel is 20770 km^2.
Tokyo is about 7500 square kilometers. Even the Greater Tokyo Area is only 13500 km^2.
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Ugh, you are right I mistakenly added a 0 to Tokyo's sq km. I blame it on Godzilla
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Just as well the USA government is just as small and has just as few resources as the Israeli government isn't it.
Population size is a stupid metric to compare to the USA.
When you want to make sense look up:
- Government size relative to population
- Government revenue relative to population
- Government logistics relative to population (include military here, since that's what sane countries do when they aren't fighting wars)
Suddenly you'll find the the USA is look like a bunch of incompetent morons, which is
Are they sure? (Score:2)
Could be because almost all of them are already dead.