Live on Bloomberg TV

00:00Health Minister Yuli Edelstein told my co-anchor Manus Cranny that he plans to have 70 to 80 percent of the population vaccinated by May.The response of the population is incredible. The efficiency of our medical teams is beyond any belief. And we are very happywith what's going on. We adjust all the time reminding the public that we are trying to take the population and risk out ofthe equation. It still does not mean that the country has herd immunity or that we left coronavirus behind us. The pace we wantto try and understand the pace of sustainable is the pace of one hundred and fifty thousand doses per day.We are keeping the pace for the last thing I would say 10 days. We start in vaccination and a little bit more than two weeksago. But on the first couple of days we were just vaccinating the medical teams and hospitals in our age HMO's. And then westarted with the 60 plus population. We added to that to some chronic diseases. This is thepopulation we are targeting right now. Operation of that kind definitely has somelet's say some deferrals in terms of that. In the end of the day you can sometimes find some remnants of the end of the vaccinewhere we call upon anyone who wants to get vaccinated to come and get the shot. But we are in general satisfied have been 75to 80 percent of those vaccinated as the population we targeted. Will that slow dying. Well the slope will that curve slope dyingover the next couple of weeks. Well I don't think so because what will what will happen inabout a week from now. We will start administering things at the second dose. The second shot of the vaccine to those who alreadyhad gotten the first one. So it will. We will keep the same pace. What will happen though that our age HMOs will be givingappointments for the first chunk. Are you expecting any emergency supplies to make sure that yoursupply chain is full and robust. Any emergency supplies from any of the vaccine providers. This month of January. Unfortunatelyat this stage it doesn't look doable. Our next supply is supposed to come in and in the very beginning of February whichas I'm said leads us to the station where we will have to adjust the second shot. At this stage if there will be pleasantsurprises we will be more than happy to to use the new supplies. But right now we are not starting starting with additionalsegments of the population. There's a great debate raging in a number of countries about the correct interval between dose oneand dose two on the Pfizer beyond tech. What are you recommending. What's good for Israel. We are. We are. Keep inthe recommendations of the company itself or Pfizer. We are giving the second shot in three weeks from the first one. Weknow that it's not dangerous to be late. A couple of days. But we are trying to our HMO is trying to immediately set anappointment three weeks later. Are you actively encouraging. We're hearing stories of his Facebook pages people travelingaround looking for those excess vaccines at the end of the day. Are you actively sending a message Minister to encourage peopleto turn up at the end of the day at centers to get access finds their backswing. No it's the other way round. We have people youknow sometimes trying to you know they're trying their luck. We just appear at the end ofthe day asking whether there is any possibility to get the shot which shows that as I've said the response of the population isincredible. But we are very straight. We are instructing the Asia to first and foremost deal is the population risk. In manyways the world is living at the real life in Israel as a test case. Have you been able to ramp long your campaign so rapidly.Well first of all I do have to say that we got prepared in advance. Let's never forget that we are just a small country. Itwas quite clear for us along the way that once any company will have a vaccine the ready vaccine was all the approvals FDA andall the other international approvals pardon me being so I'm so glad. But they weren't even looking out my direction. They willbe looking for huge markets to to sell their vaccine. So we signed our agreement several months ago when there wasa skeptic attitude towards the possibility to have vaccine in the near future. And the next the next. And so the real answerwould be oh a credible medical teams. The agent knows that the moment we told them that the vaccine is available in no time atall. They got prepared and they were out there. What's the biggest logistical challenge in rolling this out. The first onewe encountered was the huge sense of about a thousand doses. We were unable to go to distant areas with smaller developmenttowns or keep would seem you know all the small places. We introduced these randy technology with the approval of Pfizerhow to split the sets. We now can bring as little as 50 doses to some distant points. This is probably part of the answer. Why isit going so fast. Where are we to start. Was the policy of just having huge stadiums. You know everyone who wants to getvaccinated could come to it for elderly people for the population at risk right now. This is much less possible them tocrusts. They were 300 meters away from home and get vaccinated into the local clinics. Are you running 24 hours at the moment.You mentioned stadiums. Are you open 24 hours. No no we are. We are open seven days a week. But they sometimes say some place ofwork to 10:00 p.m. 8 p.m. We are not working 24/7. No. I will tell you quite frankly where I am the situation where I wouldhave a couple of million small vaccines I would instruct the medical teams to work 24/7. Right. Well you get AstraZenecavaccine soon and will I take you to 24 hours. Well in terms of the agreement that we have we are not viewed togetherAstraZeneca any for the next couple of months. I was very glad to hear that they got the British approval. Weare still waiting for the approval from the FDA and we are counting on all the vaccines that we are expecting to get.Because at this stage let's be frank. We don't know whether it's once in a half a year in a year once in a lifetime. Thisinformation is still not scientifically proven. When you said that you signed deals early you used the phrase early bird Ithink. And one of the one of the articles that I read did you get a discount for signing early. Or did you pay a premium.First of all the friend can seize. I don't have a clue. I'm not very good in industrial espionage so I don't know what othercountries pay for it. I'm asking you what Israel pay. Did you do a deal. Did you get a beneficial deal for signing earlier. No I.We negotiated. We had tough negotiations. The result is we paid what what we paid. But I think that whatthe always kept in mind that was upsetting. Already we are a small market. So I didn't have any reasons to believe thatasking for save five million doses I can give the price of someone best or half a billion. Bought a piece of advice for theother health ministers around the world. To never lose hope to continue vaccinating and that we are allthe time ready to share the best practices and practices to learn from the others. I don't think that we know all the truthsabout vaccination. So I'm talking to some of my colleagues and I'm getting some good advice. I'm trying to give advice whenasked and that I think that we always have to remember that you can be a green island in the red world. We want all thecountries around us to be vaccinated as soon as possible.

No schedule data available.

Health Minister: Israel Targets 80% Vaccination by May

Israel's world-leading vaccination campaign has gotten yet another boost with its approval of the Moderna shot on Monday. The nation has inoculated a higher proportion of its population than any other country and is delivering shots so quickly that it's starting to outstrip its supply. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein spoke exclusively to Bloomberg's Manus Cranny from Tel-Aviv. (Source: Bloomberg)

Bloomberg Technology
The only daily news program focused exclusively on technology, innovation and the future of business from San Francisco. Hosted by Emily Chang.
More episodes and clips