Vaccine, election give differing shades of charm to third lockdown

• Date: 07 January 2021
• Author: HERB KEINON
• Published date: 07 January 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

And it is true: been there, done that... a lot. Israel spent some five weeks in various forms of lockdown from March 14 to April 19, and another four weeks from September 18 to October 17. So, yes, we are all well versed in the ways of the lockdowns.

Yet though the stores may be closed this time, as they were the last two times around; while the children will be studying via Zoom this time, like the two previous times around; and while travel from home will be restricted, as it has been twice in the past year, there are two big differences going into this lockdown.

The first is that the lockdown is taking place while Israel's vaccination campaign is in full throttle, and the second is that this closure is taking place with the country's fourth election campaign in two years well under way.

And those two elements may give the current lockdown a much different feel.

First the vaccine. With Israel limping into its third lockdown as the number of newly infected each day steadily climbs, and – even more troubling – as the percentage of ill among those tested ranges between 6% and 8% – the vaccine rollout has been a ray of light.

And even with the stories of people who are not in the high-risk group eligible for the vaccine finagling their way to get it anyway, of some elderly being pushed to the end of the vaccine line, and rumors that the country's vaccine stock is running low, there is still no denying that the country is inoculating its population against the virus at a pace that far outstrips that of any other country in the world.

As of Wednesday, of the 15.6 million doses of the shot injected in arms around the globe, some 1.5 million – or fully 9.5% – of those injections have been in Israel, not bad for a country that makes up only 0.1% of the world's entire population. And that Israel has already inoculated some 17% of its population is not because it possesses 9.5% of all the vaccines in the world (it does not), but rather, because – first and foremost – the structure of its health system enables it to vaccinate extremely efficiently.

Israel's impressive vaccination statistics are not important because they boost national pride – "look how well we are doing compared to everyone else" – but, rather, because those stats give people a sense that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that a way out of the pandemic crisis has been charted.

Psychologically, it is always easier to withstand pain and discomfort if one knows when that pain and...