On Thursday, the Health Ministry that the country had beaten its target of 153,000 daily inoculations for the second straight day.Oxford University's Our World in Data, a statistics and research website, Israel far surpasses other countries of the world when compared to its population, as of Wednesday.
Israel’s Channel 12 News added that a million doses of the Moderna vaccine, which have not yet been used, have already arrived, far ahead of the March target date.
Meanwhile, frustration has mounted in the US, as the Centers for Disease Control reported this week that just over 2 million Americans have been given the first vaccine dose, far fewer than the 20 million targeted by President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed for 2020. Over 11 million doses have been shipped across the country.
In both countries, a lag in data reporting could be behind a skew in the numbers. But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease specialist in the US, expressed concern to CNN on Tuesday.
“Even if you undercount, 2 million as an undercount, how much undercount could it be?” Fauci said. “So we are below where we want to be.”
Both countries are also experiencing case surges. Israel, which has enacted a third nationwide lockdown, reported 5,804 new cases on Friday, its highest total since October. In the US, California has been particularly hard hit, and the first cases of the new more contagious COVID variant first found in the United Kingdom have been discovered.