Akko, Israel (February 23, 2021) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Magen David Adom’s mobile vaccination center in Akko on Tuesday, February 23, to thank the country’s paramedic and Red Cross service for its pivotal role in combatting coronavirus in Israel.
The Akko vaccination site is just one of many MDA has established throughout the country to vaccinate the full breadth of Israel’s diverse population. Akko, in particular, boasts a citizenry from virtually all of Israel’s demographic groups, including Jews, Christian and Muslim Arabs, Druze, and Baha’is.
“I would like to thank MDA Director General Eli Bin and his excellent team, the prime minister said. “We are about to defeat the pandemic, but we are still in competition with the virus and its mutations. [While] we will be the first country in the world to emerge from the corona pandemic, an additional effort needs to be made so that we will come out of it together and come back to life.”
While Magen David Adom is one of several Israeli organization administering vaccines, it’s already administered more than half-a-million shots, helping Israel to become the world leader in vaccinating its people. As of today, Israel has fully vaccinated more than 36% of its population. An other 16% have already received their first dose of the two-shot vaccine regimen and are mere weeks away from being fully vaccinated as well.
MDA, in particular, has focused its vaccination efforts on groups at the highest risk of serious disease or others that are sometimes marginalized or less likely to seek vaccination. As part of this strategy, Magen David Adom has vaccinated every resident of Israel’s nursing homes and housing for the disabled. And the organization has actively set up mobile vaccination units in Arab communities, such as Rehat, East Jerusalem, and near Bedouin outposts in the Negev, and in Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) neighborhoods.
“We’re pleased with the support and assistance we’ve received from Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government,” said Eli Bin, MDA’s director-general, “And we will continue to fight coronavirus in order to return to our normal way of life.”
