The Cost of Fighting Covid

Israel became on Thursday one of the first in the world to receive a shipment of Pfizer’s Paxlovid pills, which have performed well against the omicron variant in lab tests.

The initial delivery—via El Al—consisted of several tens of thousands of pills, said to cost around $530 per patient, though the price for Israeli patients has not yet been determined.

According to Kan news, Israel has signed a deal with Pfizer to purchase 100,000 doses overall.

Channel 12, meanwhile, added up some of the costs of fighting the pandemic:

Over the past 18 months, the Israeli government has spent 29 billion shekels ($9.3 billion). A rough breakdown:

NIS 6 billion ($1.93 billion) on tests
NIS 4.3 billion ($1.38 billion) on vaccines
NIS 500 million ($161 million) on antigen tests for schools
NIS 850 million ($274 million) on quarantine hotels
NIS 1.3 billion ($419 million) on staffing for various operations centers
NIS 250 million ($80 million) on public relations efforts