Two years into the pandemic, nations across the globe are still struggling to cope with the profound challenges that coronavirus poses. Israel is proud to be one of the countries on the front lines of responding to this unprecedented public health crisis.
Israel’s unique ability to deal with emergency situations, improvise, and respond quickly and flexibly have all factored into its success in coping with the pandemic. With its rapid vaccine rollout last year – Israel was widely praised for delivering the world’s fastest vaccination campaign in the first half of 2021 – and as the first country to give a booster shot to the general public, Israel has important lessons to share.
It makes sense, therefore, that the world looks to Israel as a go-to expert on how to manage the pandemic. Moreover, there is a core Jewish value that teaches us that we must help the needy during difficult times, as well as those in need of medical care. It is therefore natural that Israel has gone to great lengths to support its friends in the international community.
Israel has been heavily involved on the international coronavirus diplomacy scene, collaborating and exchanging information with countries around the world in order to save lives and help its partners cope with the public health crisis. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been at the forefront of this effort, leading the push to donate masks, respirators, and other essential medical equipment to countless countries.
When India was being ravaged by a severe wave of coronavirus in April of last year, Israel sent entire planeloads filled with respirators and medical aid. When Romania was grappling with a crisis in November, we sent a team of five of our top medical experts to share Israel’s experience in coping with similar such crises it had experienced in its hospitals. In Ghana, the Israeli embassy mobilized to produce and distribute masks to local medical teams. At the initiative of Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Israel has also committed to donate over a million vaccine doses to African nations.
Mashav – the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s agency for international cooperation – also has several aid and cooperation campaigns currently active around the world. It is currently in the midst of its “Better Together” initiative, which has seen assistance packages containing hundreds of kilos worth of PPE gear, syringes, medications, and more sent to medical staff in 52 countries across the globe, including Kenya, Peru, and Bulgaria. Mashav has also brought medical staff and administrators from Tanzania, Rwanda, Guatemala, and many others to Israel for world-class seminars and lectures. Israel’s not-for-profit sector has similarly mobilised to assist the international community. IsraAID, one of Israel’s leading NGOs, just finished a six-month project in Eswatini, where an Israeli team set up and managed an operations centre for distributing vaccines, training medical staff, and more.
Exchanging information is also key to managing the pandemic, and the information that Israel has shared on its vaccine campaign and booster shots has undoubtedly saved lives. Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the US government, praised Israel’s vaccine rollout and named Israel as the leading example of “where you should want to be” on coronavirus vaccines, and often “refers people to how successful the Israelis have been in getting virtually every age group boostered”.
Senior Israeli Health Ministry officials have played a key role in the effort to exchange information, and to this end, the Ministries of Health and Foreign Affairs have held joint discussions with Germany, South Korea, and the United States – including with several state health commissioners – on Israel’s insights and best practises on the latest outbreak, including its experience with administering the vaccine boosters. Australia also shortened its waiting period for the booster shot, as well as its mandatory quarantine period, following information shared by Israel during a briefing with senior officials down under.
Israel’s innovative digital healthcare and telehealth systems have also served as an example for others to look to. Israel has been widely credited with revolutionising the way the world thinks about health, and has positioned itself at the forefront of the effort to create a data-centric system of medicine. In fact, the Israeli national healthcare system’s already-sophisticated level of digitization was one aspect that helped make the country’s ambitious vaccination drive so successful.
Moreover, the advent of COVID-19 brought the topic of telemedicine to the fore of the global tech discourse, and Israel made it a priority to be a leader in this field. HealthIL – a joint venture of the Israeli Ministry of Economy, Digital Israel Bureau, and the Israel Innovation Institute – seeks to improve healthcare by supporting innovation in the field, bridging the gap between the tech community and the public health sector. By centralising Israel’s global healthcare innovation ecosystem, HealthIL is bringing Israeli health tech to the world by collaborating across organisations, connecting demand and supply, and streamlining innovation change management.
Israel is eager to join hands with the international community in order to effectively address this current global challenge, as well as the ones to come. Ultimately, the world will only succeed in collectively overcoming this pandemic if we work together and cooperate. Moreover, health cooperation during the coronavirus crisis has also served as an important bridge between nations and for peace. It is Israel’s hope that Omicron will be the last of the pandemic, and we are looking forward to continuing to share our insights and experiences with the world in all spheres of crisis management and public health.
Ambassador Daniel Meron is Covid-19 Project Manager at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
