Bourla: Netanyahu called me 30 times a day about vaccine developments

Pfizer selects Israel to conduct vaccination study against Covid-19, enabling the country to rapidly vaccinate its entire population after dozens of phone calls from the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the CEO Albert Burla , some of them in the middle of the night.

According to Bloomberg, the relatively small size of the country and the fact that it has electronic health records covering more than 99% of its population were the two determinants of the decision to conduct the study in Israel, said Pfizer CEO Albert Burla in an interview with the Israeli Channel 12.

But what really swayed the scales in favor of Israel was the insistence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Burla described as “obsession.”

“He called me 30 times,” Burla said. “He was asking me about the mutations and the data we have. And I said, “Prime Minister, it’s three in the morning,” but he kept saying, “No, no, don’t worry, tell me.” Or he would call me to ask about children, “Should I vaccinate children at school?” or ask about pregnant women. In this way he convinced me that he really wants it and he will watch it himself “.

Israel is the first country in the world to be vaccinated against coronavirus, starting to vaccinate the population in December. More than half of the population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. The country also agreed to collect and share data on the vaccine, which turned it into a case study for the rest of the world.

In the study published on Thursday, both the company and the country’s Ministry of Health reported that the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine prevented 94% of asymptomatic infections and 97% of symptomatic infections, hospitalization and death.