Israel is the first country to vaccinate 1 million citizens against the coronavirus, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming his country leads the world in the fight to defeat COVID-19.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said Israel is ready to inoculate residents with millions of vaccines – “more than any other country in the world relative to its population”.
The nation has a population of around 9 million, and has lost about 3400 citizens to the coronavirus.
Mr Netanyahu said it aims to vaccinate around 150,000 people per day.
“My goal is to reach 5.5 million vaccinated people,” he said.
“This is enough to be done with this. There will also be enough for 9 million citizens and the truth is that there will be more.”
Israeli Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said the nation’s place as the first to reach 1 million vaccinations was “a great achievement”.
“Now, after the 1,000,000th person to be vaccinated is here with us, it is possible to say with certainty that Israel, with [God’s] help, will be the first country in the world to be vaccinated,” he said.
“Within a few months, we will be able to say: ‘Hasta la vista’ to the coronavirus and return to normality.”
Read the Covid-19 update in The Daily Telegraph.