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JANUARY 7, 2021 | The Jewish Home
Israel’s in a state of emergency as it faces its third lockdown
ISRAEL’S LOCKDOWN
CRISIS
With an unemployment rate of over 23%, 1 IN 7 ISRAELIS ARE SKIPPING MEALS and 50% of Israelis are worried they CAN’T PAY RENT.
THE NEED FOR DAILY MEALS TRIPLED
3x
You can help our team deliver 110,000+ Meals-on-Wheels to the ELDERLY, HOMEBOUND and UNEMPLOYED each month.
oped by Pfizer and Moderna. For now, though, the vaccines produced in India will not be exported. They are only going to be provided to the government of India – not even private hospitals or the private market will be able to obtain those vaccines. India already has a vast, established network under its Universal Immunization Program, which inoculates about 55 million people per year. The vaccines should be able to be distributed within the week. Across Asia, a growing number of countries have started vaccinations to combat coronavirus. In China, regulators last week approved the country’s first homegrown coronavirus vaccine, developed by state-owned pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm. The Chinese government aims to inoculate 50 million people ahead of February’s Lunar New Year celebrations. The country has already administered 4.5 million doses of experimental Chinese vaccines since June under its emergency use program, which included frontline workers such as health care workers and customs officers. Japan, on the other hand, has told its citizens that inoculations will begin in late February. Frontline medical workers and the elderly would be the first groups to receive the vaccinations.
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dard refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit). So far, more than 10 million have been infected with coronavirus in India – second only to the United Sates in total caseload. By August, the country is hoping to inoculate 300 million frontline workers, elderly, and vulnerable people. The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine maker, is pro-
ducing the AstraZeneca and Oxford vaccine locally, having taken on a huge risk to manufacture the vaccine months before approval from regulators. “It’s a great day for India and the world, because this is going to be the most affordable vaccine, that will be equitably distributed as much as possible across the globe,” the institute’s CEO Adar Poonawalla said. Poonawalla said the vaccine would be sold initially to the Indi-
an government for $2.74 per dose – around what it costs to produce. It’ll be priced between $3 to $5 per dose for export, and at $13.70 for the private market. India’s coronavirus vaccines are an important alternative for developing countries, which may not be able to afford the more expensive vaccines made in the West or have the cold storage capacity to transport vaccines that require ultra-cold temperatures, such as the ones devel-
U.S. & Israel Vote Against UN Budget
The United States was the only country to vote with Israel against the United Nations’ (UN) annual budget in protest of the body’s wide-
