It seems the Health Ministry has been asleep at the wheel for quite some time now and has been left speechless at the prospect of its most critical task: providing trustworthy, serious information about the importance of vaccination and the safety and efficacy of the coronavirus vaccines, while at the same time, allaying Israelis' concerns over the record time in which they were developed and authorizes and standing up to the handful of "anti-vaxxers" and COVID-19 deniers spreading false, misleading, and dangerous information about the vaccines.
While the ministry did set up a new site to answer common questions about the vaccine and is poised to post informative videos with several doctors familiar to the public through their countless TV appearances since the outbreak of the pandemic, it has left the media and public arenas completely open to false information and conspiracy theories from a handful of doctors who spread baseless information that severely harms public trust in the vaccine.
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The Health Ministry has failed not just at providing information to the public but also at producing enough opinion leaders from all populations to convince their sectors to get vaccinated and set a personal example. The personal example set by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, politicians, rabbis, and community leaders is a central means for advocating for vaccination, and the Health Ministry must make extensive efforts to this end.
With over 3,000 Israelis dead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein's overwhelming success in bringing the vaccines to Israel as quickly as possible is to be lauded, but it is no less important that we build public trust in the vaccines.
Despite repeated warnings from senior medical staff, a state comptroller report, and piercing public criticism, the Health Ministry has not maintained any kind of constant and significant means for providing information and answers to the public. It has failed miserably at explaining the importance of vaccinations to those groups opposed to inoculation, and it has failed miserably at convincing the majority of the medical staff at Israel's hospitals to get the flu vaccine, the very same people who should now set an example and be the first to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
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