Virus czar: ‘I hope vaccine will allow us to celebrate Pesach almost freely’ - The Times of Israel

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Coronavirus czar Nachman Ash on Sunday said he hopes Israelis will be able to celebrate Passover in an almost restriction-free manner this year, with Israel set to begin vaccinating its population against COVID-19.

“I assume that in March-April we’ll already return to significant activity. My hope is that we can celebrate Passover in an almost free manner,” Ash told the Ynet news site.

He stressed this would depend on the vaccination take-up rate by Passover, also known as the Jewish festival of freedom, which will begin the evening of March 28.

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“This is my opportunity to call on people to get vaccinated and thus we’ll create herd immunity in the Israeli public and we can return to full activity,” Ash said.

Border Police officers and an IDF soldier at a temporary checkpoint in Jerusalem on April 14, 2020, ahead of the start of a nationwide closure for the Passover holiday. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)

During Passover 2020, which fell during the initial outbreak of the pandemic, the government ordered an overnight curfew, confining Israelis to their homes for the first night of the holiday. Slightly less stringent lockdown measures were also imposed during the last night of Passover, barring Israelis from leaving their hometowns.

Sweeping restrictions on movement and gatherings were also put in place for the autumn holidays of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot.

Ash also said health officials were working to move up the planned date to begin inoculating Israelis with Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine from December 27, after US regulators gave the inoculation its go-ahead. The vaccine has yet to be approved in Israel, but the director of the Health Ministry has signaled it could be green-lighted in the coming days.

“It needs to be done in an orderly and responsible way. We want the logistics to work as needed, with all the approvals received,” he said. “We’ll set out very quickly, and within a few months we’ll reach the target of a large proportion of the population that is vaccinated.”

Coronavirus czar Nachman Ash visits the Jerusalem Municipality on November 22, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also suggested Sunday that the start of the vaccination drive could be moved up, without further elaborating.

“We see the end of the pandemic. Until then I ask [everyone] to observe the rules,” he said during a visit to a mass-immunization station in Tel Aviv.

Earlier Sunday, a military task force said the planned vaccination drive would not have a marked impact on the coronavirus pandemic until the end of winter.

In light of this prediction, the Coronavirus National Information and Knowledge Center called for widespread mask-wearing to minimize contagion until there is a “real influence of the vaccines” on curbing morbidity in the country.

The task force’s forecast was disputed by Eran Segal, a computational biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, who noted a significant number of Israelis could soon be vaccinated if the goal of immunizing 60,000 a day is met.

“According to our models and scenarios, this means that after a month you can vaccinate almost every risk group in Israel,” he was quoted saying by Ynet. “Very quickly at this pace you can vaccinate the entire population above the age of 65-70. You dramatically lower the effect on both morbidity and basic reproductive number.”

An Israeli nurse seen during a simulated vaccination against the coronavirus, at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

If the vaccine is indeed effective, Segal predicted there would be a “significant drop” in new infections 1.5 months after the vaccine begins to be administered on a large scale.

“We’ll see a lot fewer seriously ill people and death and we can talk about accelerating the exit plan,” he said.

Israel has purchased millions of doses of Pfizer’s vaccine, and the first batch landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday.

The expected approval by Israel of the vaccine comes as the country grapples with rising infection numbers, with officials weighing plans to tighten restrictions — and then backing down.

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