Ministry of Health agreed with Moderna to double the number of vaccines Israel will purchase

The Ministry of Health has signed an agreement with Moderna to double the number of vaccines that Israel will purchase from the company three times - to a total of 6 million vaccines for three million Israelis. This was announced today by the Prime Minister's Office and the Minister of Health in a joint statement. The announcement did not specify exactly when Moderna's vaccines will arrive in Israel, but only that this will happen during the year. It was announced yesterday that 4 doses of Pfizer vaccine for 2 million vaccinators will arrive already during the current month. In addition, Israel has an agreement with Astra-Zanka.
On Dec. 10, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Advisory Committee is expected to convene to hold the crucial hearing on Pfizer's vaccine approval. On the 18th of the month there will be a discussion about the modern vaccine. If the request is approved, the Americans are expected to start the vaccination campaign the next day. In the UK, the vaccination campaign is expected to start as early as next week. If everything goes as planned - Israel will also start the vaccination campaign soon.
Pfizer and Biontech and Moderna vaccines are based on mRNA technology, which causes cells to make a viral SARS-COV-2 (corona) protein, which triggers an immune response in the recipient's body. Pfizer announced last October that its vaccine was 95% effective based on an experiment conducted in tens of thousands of people. It was the first company to reach the finish line of vaccine development, and a few days later a modern company also arrived at the destination, with similar technology and similar success rates. This is the first time in history that a vaccine based on this technology has been approved.
Israel's main challenges now are logistical and explanatory: on the one hand, the state's ability to persuade the medical staff and the entire public to get vaccinated, and on the other hand, the ability to operate the vaccination campaign. The information and logistics challenges are likely to be intertwined, as the more people get vaccinated, the more effective the vaccines will be.
The fact that this is a new vaccine developed with new technology is a major challenge in terms of informing the medical staff and the public, and the state's ability to convince the public of the vaccine's safety.

 logistical challenges
The logistical challenge stems from the deep freeze at a temperature of less than minus 70 degrees in the case of the Pfizer vaccine, and the fact that once a package of 1,000 vaccines is taken out of the freezer they can be used for only 5 days. In addition, after opening it is very difficult to transport the vaccines. This means that the operation of the vaccines will be required to be extremely accurate, and if not - vaccines will be thrown in the bin. One of the dilemmas at the moment is whether to allow the HMOs to vaccinate themselves or vaccinate centrally.
Israel also has an agreement with a third company, Astra-Zanka, in collaboration with Oxford University, to purchase 10 million vaccines for 5 million Israelis. Unlike modern and Pfizer vaccines developed using the mRNA method, Oxford's vaccine is based on a virus that is not corona and does not cause disease. The virus is genetically engineered, and when it is injected into the body it produces a protein of the corona virus - which triggers the desired immune response. This is a cheaper vaccine that also requires less complex transport and storage conditions, but at the moment it seems that there has been a delay in its approval by the various health authorities, due to a trial error, which led the company to conduct a new trial. It is not yet clear how long this will delay the vaccine's approval.