Despite the impressive immunization data, the top officials of the Ministry of Health have failed to inject the general public into the vaccination centers • The default results could be disastrous • Opinion
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein
Photo:
Alex Kolomoisky
The Ministry of Health and its leaders rightly boast of the vaccination campaign of the four HMOs, which on a global scale is one of the most extensive, effective and comprehensive in the world.
However, the Ministry of Health and its leaders, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and CEO Prof. Hezi Levy, have so far failed to get the entire public to get vaccinated, so much so that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday at an event at the National Health Fund in honor of the 4 million vaccinated "To turn to 570,000 Israelis over the age of 50 who have not yet been vaccinated, with almost 100% of the dead and seriously ill in this group."
Photo: Moshe Ben Simhon, Newsenders
How is it that more than half a million Israelis over the age of 50 have not yet been vaccinated when it is known that most, if not all, of them are not "vaccine opponents" affected by the false information and Pike News flooding a handful of charlatans, including doctors in the public health system.
Most of those who have not been vaccinated are those in the health system who are called "vaccinators" or "indifferent to vaccines" whose ongoing outreach activities, along with direct contact with the attending physicians - first and foremost GPs and other specialists, may lead them to be vaccinated.
Meanwhile, instead, the Ministry of Health is trying to promote an unprecedented bill that will, among other things, try to prevent unvaccinated workers from entering their workplace and allow information to be passed on to local authorities about vaccine refusers.
There may be no choice but to advance the bill, which has already been opposed by many, but it is an expression and reflection of the ongoing and profound failure of the top of the Ministry of Health in the national mission they should have led: following and persuading the majority of the public to get vaccinated and informing. The deadly.
This is to increase the public response not only to get vaccinated, but also to comply with the required corona restrictions.
But here, too, there is a small and deadly group, which includes, among others, a handful of scientists, doctors and journalists, which persists in spreading false, false and dangerous information in the face of the weak response of top Ministry of Health officials.
The failure of the heads of the Ministry of Health in its failure to get the whole public vaccinated did not begin in the last year in the corona plague, but in the worst plague in 100 years the default is even more severe and severe and its result could be, God forbid, disastrous for the whole country.
As early as 2013, the State Comptroller warned that in Israel, as in some Western countries, there is a growing phenomenon of parents not vaccinating their children, and he warned that the ministry must act more decisively and significantly to address the problem.
However, the Ministry of Health's continuing failure in this area could be seen in Israel during the outbreak of measles, when groups of parents in several communities and localities refused to vaccinate their children and greatly endangered all children in the same locality, as revealed in a series of investigations in Israel Today.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Health published data on the last two years on the vaccination of children in schools in Israel.
From these data it can also be seen, again, that the important and old routine vaccines against dangerous childhood diseases have very high vaccination rates on a global scale throughout the country (97.8% -95.2% of vaccinations in first and second grades), but that the newer vaccines, relatively , There is a very low and very alarming response in schools, just like for flu vaccines in grades 2-4 where the immunization rate is only between 48.6% -30.5%.
And the eighth-grade immunization rate against the deadly papillomavirus is only between 63.1% -48.8%.
Despite the State Comptroller's reports, harsh public and media criticism and data on the alarming decline in recent years in the public's readiness to vaccinate in Israel, the Ministry of Health has not acted significantly and decisively enough to influence the entire public to vaccinate as an act that protects the vaccinated. The Ministry of Health has also taken almost no regular and significant outreach to eradicate, at least in some sections of the public, the ignorance and dangerous misinformation about corona vaccines.Now we can all pay the price for those very serious omissions.