4 ms·

a) Canada has 4x the population of Israel b) Israel agreed to the extraordinary term of sharing their data with Pfizer, in exchange for getting doses early, so

• azernik 5y ago
  I wouldn't place too much weight on C. Even under the new Bennett-Lapid government, the country has been willing to go all out on booster shots. There's just a lot of willingness to go for "good enough" solutions in emergency situations, and forget the rules for the duration. Civil defense culture also helps, in that it's trained people to reason about countermeasures that are not 100% ("hermetic" in the local lingo) - you still get in the stairwell to protect from shrapnel, even if a direct hit will kill you anyway. People don't have the gut reaction of betrayal when a 90% countermeasure fails sometimes.
• refurb 5y ago
  In terms of B that’s called a “patient registry” which is quite common and done in Canada as well. It’s basically a clinical trial post-approval where you aim to capture every patient on the drug. I’d argue Canada’s lack of interest has more to do with capability and overall interest in early access.
• jollybean 5y ago
  Israel was paying something like $65/dose, which is way, way ahead of what other nations were going to pay. Bibi's career at this point was up against a wall, and he was willing to do anything to 'be first'. Israel has a cagey foreign policy apparatus, I have no doubt they went 'all in' on this, calling in favours, applying pressure in addition to the regular negotiations.