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Light at the end of the tunnel: Vaccines on the way, but there is one more big challenge before the victory Israel today

2020-12-04T21:36:16.997Z


| healthAgainst the background of the amazing achievement of bringing millions of vaccine doses to Israel this month, about a quarter of Israelis declare that they will not be vaccinated. The opinion polls conducted in the past two weeks are astonishingly inconceivable: a significant portion of the Israeli public say they will not be vaccinated in the first wave of vaccines in Corona. In a survey publish


Against the background of the amazing achievement of bringing millions of vaccine doses to Israel this month, about a quarter of Israelis declare that they will not be vaccinated.

The opinion polls conducted in the past two weeks are astonishingly inconceivable: a significant portion of the Israeli public say they will not be vaccinated in the first wave of vaccines in Corona.

In a survey published on the Mako website last week - 23% of adult Israelis announced that they do not intend to be vaccinated against the corona virus.

PM Netanyahu at the ceremony announcing the establishment of an emergency medical hospital in Ichilov, today // Photo: Photo: GPO

These survey data overlap with identical data coming from the Western world.

The prestigious journal "Medicine Medicine" presented data from a similar survey conducted among 13,000 people in 19 countries.

This survey showed unresponsiveness to vaccination among close to 20% of respondents.

This is inconceivable, because a scientific medical solution to the severe crisis in the country's history, which has been shaking us for a few more years, is received coldly, and amazingly, since the general public has cooperated in the distant past with the fight against serious diseases and epidemics such as polio, measles, cerebral palsy and more. . 

Concerns about a new vaccine can be understood.

First, the vaccine is not recognized, and has not yet accumulated mileage of years of safe experience.

For the sake of comparison, let's go for a moment to the routine vaccines given to babies in milk drops.

These vaccines have already accumulated quite a few years of high safety profile, ie the absence of significant side effects, so parents are willing to give them to their children.

These are the same parents he will be asked if they would be willing to vaccinate themselves against Corona, one in five would answer in the negative, in part "because the vaccine is new and unfamiliar."

It is worth reminding everyone that all the "familiar and safe" vaccines of milk drops, too, began in the early years as unfamiliar, and yet the vast majority of the public was willing to vaccinate children with these vaccines, mainly because they saw the devastating results of epidemics in those years.

But beyond the fact that the corona vaccine is a new vaccine, the second factor that raises public concern is the lack of transparency on the part of some of the companies that develop the vaccines.

Just this week we were informed of a mistake and lack of transparency in the vaccination of the Astraznica company.

It should be understood: such omissions are of catastrophic significance to the entire future operation of immunization.

Even before Astraznica's critical mistake, optimistic reports from other companies - Modern and Pfizer - of 95% success were met with a cold shoulder from some of the public, who do not believe these reports and are sure the companies only want huge profits at the expense of the innocent public. 

Transparency is required

How do you change this perception?

How do you get into the vaccination process with sympathetic public opinion?

We, the pediatricians, have significant and in-depth experience in similar events, such as polio, measles and more.

During the polio crisis in 2013, we led the information campaign, led by Prof. Gamzo, who was the director general of the Ministry of Health at the time, a campaign that led to the vaccination of more than 70% of the population in a short period of time.

To our understanding, the name of the game in eradicating an epidemic is the combination of information, transparency and personal example.

The public will have to know everything about vaccines, what they are, what they are made of, what their benefits are and what their consequences are.

Information builds trust, transparency in information builds success in eradicating the plague.

The decision-makers down to the last of them, the doctors and medical staff and everyone who is leading the fight in Corona - will also have to lend a hand to the operation.

No tricks and no sticks.

The more the Prime Minister, the ministers and the doctors get vaccinated, the more they will encourage the public tendency to get vaccinated.

And everything must be accompanied by an orderly, focused, well-addressed information campaign, in all languages ​​and for all ages.

Each and every one of the citizens of Israel will be able to receive all the information about the methods of vaccination and its dates.

Finally, one word on legislation: As the head of the Israel Children's Trust Association, I oppose legislation that requires vaccines.

It's not democratic, it's produced the opposite effect.

Therefore, the question is not whether to get vaccinated or not.

The question is how to properly prepare for the vaccination of the entire population of Israel.

The author is the chairman of the Association of Pediatrics

Source: israelhayom

All life articles on 2020-12-04

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