With Israel getting ready to start its massive vaccination program as early as next week, a new poll released Tuesday found that less than a fifth of the population is willing to go immediately, with large gaps between men and women and between them and Arab Israelis.
According to the study conducted by the University of Haifa and led by Prof. Manfred Green, a public health policy expert, said only 20.3 percent of Israeli Jewish respondents and 16% of Israeli Arab respondents said they would be willing to be among the first to take part. vaccine.
Broken down by gender, 27.3% of Jewish men and 22.8% of Arab men said they would like to be vaccinated immediately, compared to just 13.6% of Jewish women and 12.2% of Arab women.
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Israeli public attitudes to vaccination appear to be changing dramatically in the long run with 58.6% of Jewish men and 41.2% of Israeli Arab men indicating that they would be willing to take the COVID-19 picture after thousands being vaccinated, compared to 41.4% of Jewish women and 25.2% of Israeli Arab women.
Photo: A man is receiving the swine flu vaccine at a medical center in Jerusalem, December 20, 2009 (AP Photo / Dan Balilty)
The census, which surveyed 900 respondents aged 30 and over, found that 7.7% of Jewish men, 29.4% of Israeli Arab men, 17.2% of Jewish women, and 41.2% of Israeli Arab women rejected vaccine “under any circumstances. ”
Amid the start of vaccination efforts, health officials have expressed concern about public confidence in being vaccinated.
Previously published censuses have shown that 50 to 75 percent of Israelis are willing to receive the coronavirus vaccine, apparently out of fear that the ash could be introduced. a breach of safety.
Prof. Haifa University Uaine Manfred. (With permission)
Announcing his new findings, Green said Tuesday, “there appears to be a lack of confidence in a large portion of the entire Israeli population, and especially among Arabs and women, in the COVID-19 vaccine.”
“Israeli doses of COVID-19 vaccine will soon be available at Israel, but we need to address the issue of trust in the vaccine, or we may not see the kind of vaccine demand we thought it would have. , “he said.
Green warned that for Israel’s vaccination program to be effective, “we need to significantly improve and expand the information on the safety and efficacy of vaccines.”
Israel provides millions of vaccine pictures, starting with the Pfizer vaccine, which has been approved for use in the U.S. by the FDA.
The Ministry of Health on Monday told health maintenance groups that Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign will begin next week, with members of the public starting receiving vaccines on December 23rd.
The vaccine will be introduced in the spotlight as Israel struggles with an infectious disease rate and passes the hard milestone of 3,000 coronavirus deaths on Monday.
According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health, there are 18,832 active virus patients in the country. Since the outbreak began a pandemic earlier this year, 360,630 cases have been diagnosed in the country, and 3,014 people have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
