Who are Israel’s COVID-19 anti-vaxxers? New survey

Are Israelis against vaccination or are there other reasons that some one million eligible individuals have not turned out to get the jab? 

A new survey conducted by Prof. Michal Grinstein-Weiss attempts to answer this question.

The survey, which was taken on August 11 and 12, asked 925 individuals over age 18 whether they had been vaccinated or not. If not, the survey asked them why.

Some 11% of respondents said they had not been inoculated, 75% of which said they do not plan to do so. 

When broken down by religion and level of religion, the majority of the unvaccinated are either haredi (ultra-Orthodox) or Arab. Some 24% of haredim and some 21% of Arabs are unvaccinated, versus 6% of secular people, 11% of traditional people and 8% of religious or Religious Zionist respondents.

However, the answer for why these people chose not to get the shot surprised Grinstein-Weiss, director of the Social Policy Institute (SPI) at Washington University and a visiting professor at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya: Some one-third of the people who said they did not vaccinate – 54% of haredim and 38% of Arabs – said it was because they already contracted the virus in a previous wave and therefore felt that they were protected.

“It is important to understand this when messaging about vaccination to these populations,” Grinstein-Weiss said. “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 getting 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.

When the recovered people 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 number one reason that Israelis do not want to get vaccinated 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 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. Some 61% of people whose friends and/or family members are not vaccinating have chosen not to vaccinate themselves.

“They tend to give into peer pressure,” said Yaniv Shlomo, a senior research associate at SPI, who worked with Grinstein-Weiss on the survey. “They run in cliques.”

The research was conducted in partnership with the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth.

Finally, the report 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 also looked at 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 – some 60% said they would get inoculated. This is consistent with what the health funds reported as the booster campaign launched on Friday and well over 50,000 Israelis made appointments to get vaccinated. 

Do Israelis think the government is going to lock them down over the High Holy Days?

Some 75% said they believe a closure is on the way, the survey said. 

That is also up from the previous survey, which found only 48% of people expected a closure.