Hundreds of thousands of doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport late Sunday afternoon, welcomed personally by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein.
Both held a news conference on the tarmac next to the El Al aircraft that brought the vaccines to Israel from Belgium.
“This is a great day for the State of Israel with a huge shipment that has arrived in the framework of Operation Back to Life, a plane full of injections of encouragement,” Netanyahu told reporters.
“I agreed with my friend, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla, that we would bring shipment after shipment and complete the vaccination of the over-16 population in Israel during the month of March.
“Today, over 72 percent of our people over 60 have been vaccinated and we will complete this.
“Next Sunday, an additional shipment will arrive and we will start vaccinating the next group; people aged 50-60 and up and thus we will proceed.
“The Health Minister and I agreed today to increase the pace of vaccinations to 170,000 a day. This is a world record,” Netanyahu pointed out.
“I am certain that our amazing HMO medical teams and of course the nurses whose enthusiasm I can see, how they come to work with great energy together with the doctors, and MDA and Health Ministry personnel; all of them together, they will get this done.”