Israel's coronavirus infections rate stands at 1.73%, according to Health Ministry data. Of the 105,742 people who tested for the virus Wednesday, 1,732 were found to have contracted the disease. The reproduction rate is 0.75.
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The average daily number of new infections this week is 1,816 compared to 3,034 last week.
Israel has 22,107 active cases of the virus. There are 403 people in serious condition, the lowest number recorded since Aug. 10. Of those in serious condition, 168 are on ventilators.
Although 1,281,882 Israelis have recovered from the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic, 7,959 have died.
Seventy-five percent of those in serious condition are unvaccinated, according to Health Ministry data.
On the vaccination front, 3,797,909 Israelis have received all three available doses of the coronavirus vaccine. Over 6 million Israelis – 6,195,018 – have received at least one dose, while 5,692,325 have received two doses of the vaccine.
While Israel has been a pioneer on the vaccination front, the tiny Pacific nation of Palau has the world's highest percentage of people vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data released by the Red Cross on Thursday.
Fully 99% of Palau's population over 12 has had both shots of vaccine for the new coronavirus, the International Federation of Red Cross said, citing government figures that also show that this amounts to 16,152 people.
That puts Palau, an archipelago of 500 islands in the western Pacific Ocean, in the "top spot," the IFRC said in a statement.
It also presents a stark contrast with other small nations in the region that have had sluggish vaccine rollouts due to supply constraints and population hesitancy. Less than 10% of the Solomon Islands (population 650,000) and Kiribati (population 119,000) is vaccinated, the IFRC said.
In Papua New Guinea, 150 km (93 miles) north of Australia, less than 1% of the population is fully vaccinated, it added, citing Our World in Data figures.
The urgency of increasing vaccination rates in the region was increased by the coming Pacific cyclone season, which could cause more damage to livelihoods already impacted by the pandemic, the IFRC said.
Palau was not alone among the Pacific nations that are leading the world in vaccination rates, on a per capita basis. The Cook Islands (population 17,000) had 96% of its eligible population fully vaccinated, while Fiji (population 896,000) had 96% of eligible people with one dose, the IFRC said.
As coronavirus vaccines trickle into some of the poorest countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, data suggest some women are consistently missing out.
Experts fear women in Africa may be the least vaccinated population globally, thanks in large part to widespread misinformation and vaccine skepticism across the continent. But vaccine access issues and gender inequality reach far beyond Africa, with women in impoverished communities worldwide facing obstacles including cultural prejudices, lack of technology, and vaccine prioritization lists that didn't include them. And while global data by gender in vaccine distribution is lacking in many places, officials agree that women are clearly being left behind men in some places and that the issue must be addressed for the world to move past the pandemic.
Whether women had early access to vaccines was often determined by how countries gave out their first doses. Sarah Hawkes, who runs a global tracker of coronavirus information by sex at University College London, noted that Pakistan and other countries prioritized groups such as the military and migrant workers, likely contributing to continued gender gaps.
In deeply conservative and impoverished parts of India and Timor-Leste, women have received only about 35% of vaccines, according to early figures collected by governments and non-governmental groups.
In Lebanon, as in much of the Middle East, women were initially shielded from COVID-19 because they were more likely to follow social distancing guidelines, said Dr. Sasha Fahme, a women's health researcher at the American University in Beirut.
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