Some one-third of the people who said they did not vaccinate, including 54% of haredim and 38% of Arabs, said it was because they already contracted the virus in a previous wave and felt they were protected, according to a new survey of 925 Israelis conducted by Prof. Michal Grinstein-Weiss.
“It is important to understand this when messaging about vaccination to these populations,” said Grinstein-Weiss, director of the Social Policy Institute (SPI) at Washington University and a visiting professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. “This one-third is not really anti-vaccination. So, it just needs to be explained to them why they need to vaccinate even if they have already been sick.”
She said government “coercion” is ineffective among these populations. Rather, policy makers should work with the religious leaders in both sectors to formulate a campaign focused on giving recovered people one shot of the vaccine, which has been found to increase protection – especially in those who were asymptomatic or had mild cases and may not have developed a high level of neutralizing antibodies.
“We need to understand the anti-vaxxers to know how to target them,” she said.
The survey, taken on August 11 and 12, asked individuals over age 18 whether they had been vaccinated or not. Eleven percent of respondents said they had not been inoculated and 75% of them said they do not plan to do so.
The survey asked the 11% why they were unvaccinated. They could provide more than one answer.
The number one reason that Israelis who are not vaccinated do not want to do it is because they still do not feel they know enough about the long-term impact of the vaccine (46%). Others said that they do not believe the vaccine is effective (40%) or that they do not think it is safe even in the short term (38%).
Strikingly, despite multiple Israeli and international studies, there are still many women who are opting out of vaccination because they are afraid it will impact fertility (17%) or because they are pregnant or nursing and afraid it could harm their baby (11%).
On Wednesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its recommendation for pregnant people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Whereas it previously said that pregnant women “can receive” the vaccine, it is now saying that pregnant women “should be” vaccinated. The change came based on new data about the safety of the vaccines.
Israel began vaccinating pregnant women in January and stepped up its encouragement of these women getting inoculated during the third wave, when the British variant caused many women in their third trimesters to develop serious cases of the virus that required emergency delivery and treatment in the intensive care unit. Some pregnant women died from the virus then, too.
Another factor that plays into whether or not people get vaccinated seems to be their friends and family networks, with 61% of people whose friends and/or family members are not vaccinating having chosen not to vaccinate themselves.
“They tend to give in to peer pressure,” said Yaniv Shlomo, a senior research associate at SPI, who worked with Grinstein-Weiss on the survey. “They run in cliques.”
When broken down by religion and level of religion, the majority of the unvaccinated are either haredi (ultra-Orthodox) 24%, or Arab 21%, 11% are traditionally observant and 6% secular while 8% are religious or religious-Zionist respondents.
When those who have recovered are accounted for within the unvaccinated community, the gaps between the different religious sectors are drastically reduced: 9% of secular people, 9% of traditional, 6% of religious or Religious Zionist, 11% of haredim and 13% of Arabs.
It also reduces the number of unvaccinated people from 11% to 8% of respondents.
The report also looked at the connection between immunization and marital status: The percentage of those not vaccinated is higher among those who are single or without children compared to those who are married or have kids – 16% unvaccinated versus 9%.
The survey likewise asked whether individuals would be open to getting a third jab, if approved by the Health Ministry. Individuals were questioned only days before the ministry approved a second booster or third shot for healthcare workers and individuals as young as 50.
According to the data, 75% of Israelis plan to take advantage of a third jab when it becomes available – up from 50% of respondents in a previous survey conducted the month before.
When looking at the latest group of Israelis who are eligible to get the third shot – those between the ages of 50 and 60 – 60% said they would get inoculated. This is consistent with what the health funds reported as the booster campaign launched on Friday and more than 37,000 Israelis received their shot and more than 100,000 made appointments to get vaccinated.
Finally, 75% believe a closure is on the way over the High Holy Days, the survey said, compared with 48% who expected a closure in the previous survey.
The research was conducted in partnership with the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth.