Euphoria In Israel As Pfizer Vaccine Ends Lockdown

In Israel, with 4 million of its near 7 million adults vaccinated, the country is reveling in its reopening, Financial Times (FT) reports.

The country was vaccinated with the BioTech/Pfizer jab. One million people are currently waiting on their second jab.

But for the time being, the country is awash in celebration, with people everywhere drinking and making merry, according to the account of things from FT.

The report describes restaurants and bars fully open again after almost a year and people kissing and hugging in celebration. FT writes that the speed shows a promising future for the rest of the world as the vaccines continue to roll out.

The report notes that over 6,000 Israelis died of COVID-19. And despite the newfound vaccinations, there are still numerous storefronts shuttered, people out of work and beggars at traffic lights. The country faced a strict and long 139-day lockdown and, at the peak of the pandemic, around one in three Israelis was out of work. And statistics from Johns Hopkins University noted that the country had the highest rate of new infections per capita of any country in the world.

Among the country’s business community, gross domestic product only shrank 2.4 percent because of a spike in diamond exports, but private consumption fell 10 percent. Small businesses suffered as they weren’t able to transition to digital operations at the same speed as the bigger competitors.

The availability of vaccines has been touted as a way to help boost the American economy, according to the National Retail Foundation (NRF). Sales are forecasted to grow between 6.5 percent and 8.2 percent to over $4.33 trillion this year, according to the release.

NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said the NRF was “very optimistic” that the consumers, armed with pent-up demand, would be able to steer the economy in the right way. The pandemic, he said, had seen retailers going “above and beyond” to make sure safety regulations were in place.