Less than 20% of Israelis intend to receive COVID-19 vaccine - survey

Additionally, 7.7 % of Jewish men, 29.4% of Arab men, 17.2% of Jewish women and 41.2% of Arab women made it clear that they will refuse to get vaccinated for the novel coronavirus.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Updated: DECEMBER 17, 2020 07:20
An illustrative photo of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
An illustrative photo of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Less than one-fifth of Israelis intend on getting a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a recent survey conducted by the University of Haifa.
World Health Organization (WHO) experts have pointed to a 65%-70% vaccine coverage rate as a way to reach population immunity through vaccination.
Out of a representative survey sample of 900 adults aged 30 and over, some 20.3% of Israeli-Jewish respondents and 16% of Arab-Israeli participants would like to receive a vaccine immediately if it was made available to them.
By gender, there were large disparities, with some 27.3% of Jewish men and 22.8% of Arab men willing to receive a coronavirus vaccine, compared to the 13.6% of Jewish women and 12.2% of Arab women plan on doing the same.
Additionally, 7.7 % of Jewish men, 29.4% of Arab men, 17.2% of Jewish women and 41.2% of Arab women made it clear that they will refuse to get vaccinated for the novel coronavirus.
"We are excited that we now have effective vaccines to help us control the COVID-19 pandemic," said Prof. Manfred Green, director of University of Haifa’s international master’s program in public health. "However, there appears to be a striking lack of trust in a large part of the whole Israeli population, and particularly among Arabs and women, in a COVID-19 vaccine.
"Israel will soon have COVID-19 vaccine doses available, but we need to deal with the issue of trust in the vaccine, or we may not witness the kind of demand for a vaccine that we thought it would have."
Manfred suggested that pharmaceutical companies should adapt their messaging and informational campaigns to quell the hesitancy to get vaccinated among the public.
"The way that the companies initially released their results in short press releases is not an effective mechanism for getting a message to the public," Manfred explained. "They provided very limited data, without details, and even professionals in the vaccine field have difficulty explaining what these messages mean without more detailed information.
"Instead, the right thing for the companies to do is to first publish their findings in a peer-reviewed journal."
"In addition, in the past we stressed that vaccines take a long time to produce, often as many as six, to ten years," he added. "The public may be confused as to how the new vaccines were produced so quickly."
"We need to stress that the COVID-19 vaccines’ rapid development stems from major developments in the technology needed for producing vaccines, particularly inspired by the 2002-2004 SARS epidemic and the more recent Ebola epidemic, and the huge investments made in developing the new COVID-19 vaccines," Manfred continued.
"The new vaccines provide us with a unique opportunity to help control the pandemic and mitigate its enormous adverse effects on health, the economies and society in general," he concluded. "We need to greatly improve and expand the information on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines in order to achieve the necessary very high rates of compliance with vaccination."