Covid-19 vaccine!

A few weeks ago, it seemed that Israel was managing to keep the second wave of Covid-19 infections under control, but since then, the daily number of new infections has been steadily increasing. The threat of 'the British mutation' that spreads faster than the 'original' version will only serve to increase the number of new infections. Thus we have been following closely the news about the vaccine.

They say that 3.8 million doses will arrive in Israel by the end of the month (which is next week), enough for 1.9 million people to be vaccinated. The first in line are the health services, then people in old age homes and then people over 60 (yeah!). Of course, the first person to be vaccinated was our Prime Minister (hopefully not for much longer) on Saturday evening. Since then, we've been hearing various reports about the availability of the vaccine.

The news yesterday evening carried out a comparison between the four national health funds as to when one can make an appointment. I don't want to get into an explanation of the different health funds so accept the explanation that it's like there are four National Health Services running side by side. One health fund is already vaccinating, two others are giving appointments for the next few days whereas my health fund is giving appointments from mid-January to February; naturally, this health fund is the biggest and hence the slowest. I said to my wife that they will no doubt decrease the waiting time after this public shaming.

So I wasn't too surprised this morning when the kibbutz nurse issued a notice that our health fund is now accepting appointments for a central clinic in the local town. I tried first of all via the normal telephone number but of course no one answered; there was a pre-recorded message that suggested to make an appointment via their web site.

At first the web site didn't respond, but after a refresh, I was able to make an appointment (the first available) for Sunday evening. My wife came in a bit later and I made an appointment for her about half an hour later. Hopefully we will be able to be vaccinated at the same time.

Next update on Monday.....