Badly hit by the coronavirus, Israel has distributed the first of two vaccine doses to more than 10 percent of its population. Prime Minister Netanyahu is leading the charge, bolstering his own battered image along the way.
JERUSALEM — More than 10 percent of Israel’s population has received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, a rate that has far outstripped the rest of the world and buoyed the battered domestic image of the country’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, at a critical juncture.
Israel’s campaign, which began Dec. 20, has distributed the vaccine to three times as much of its population as the second-fastest nation, the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain, according to figures compiled mostly from local government sources by Our World in Data.
By contrast, less than 1 percent of the population of the United States and only small fractions of the population in many European countries received a vaccine dose by the end of 2020, according to Our World in Data, though China, the United States and Britain have each distributed more doses overall.
“It’s quite an astonishing story,” said Prof. Ran Balicer, the chairman of the national advisory team of experts that is counseling the Israeli government on its Covid-19 response.
