Of the one million Israelis vaccinated against coronavirus so far, 250 have been diagnosed with the virus days after getting the shot.
According to Channel 13 News, the number highlights the need for people to continue to protect themselves against the virus, because the body takes time to develop the antibodies needed to fight it.
Studies of the Pfizer vaccine have demonstrated that immunity begins occurring only 8-10 days after the first dose and even then immunity is only at around 50 percent. For that reason, a second dose is given 21 days after the first.
It is also unclear whether the vaccine prevents a person from spreading the virus.
While the individual would not get sick, since the immune system is now equipped to fight the virus, the individual’s nasal passages could still emit infectious virus particles.
Of the million, less than twenty people reported allergic reactions to the vaccine, including swelling of the tongue.
Four people died in the hours after receiving the vaccine, but according to the Health Ministry all were unrelated to the inoculation.
Israel topped the world in vaccination rate, with more than 10 percent of the population having received the shot, a tribute to the country’s scientific expertise.
Muhammad Abd al-Wahhab Jabarin, the 66-year-old man who was celebrated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the millionth Israeli to receive the vaccine, was identified on Sunday as having served 14 years in prison for manslaughter.
Standing alongside Jabarin at a vaccination clinic in the Arab Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm, Netanyahu it a moment of “great excitement.”
“We are breaking all of the records. We brought millions of vaccines to the State of Israel,” he said. “We are ahead of the entire world… with our excellent HMOs.”
Reports later said Netanyahu’s office was likely unaware of Jabarin’s past and he was randomly selected to be the vaccine’s millionth recipient from those waiting at the clinic.
Netanyahu was the first Israeli to receive a vaccine last Saturday night on live TV.
According to a graph published by the University of Oxford-run Our World in Data, Israel remains in first place by a large margin according to the number of vaccination doses per capita.