New research shows that more than half of the parents in Israel who had been planning to get their children vaccinated against the coronavirus had not bothered to do so at all.
The study was conducted by the Azrieli Faculty of Medicine of the Bar Ilan University and the Galilee Medical Center and has been peer reviewed.
The study results
The results of the study show that just before the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine for the 5 to 11 age group in November last year, 44% of parents with children in the said age bracket had intended to get them vaccinated.
However, now almost a year has passed and a new school year has already begun amidst uncertainty regarding the virus.
Yet, the data shows that only one in five children belonging to the said age group were actually administered the shot.
The data provided by the Health Ministry this week cannot be used for an accurate comparison with the survey because it takes into account children who have gotten the shots.
Meanwhile, the survey focused on parents who have families of different sizes, but it can give a strong approximation about vaccination drop-off.
The reason
Dr. Amiel Dror, the lead researcher of the study, said that it wasn’t that parents had suddenly become afraid of getting their children vaccinated due to medical reasons.
Instead, the big incentives that had driven people to get their required shots had vanished. His study discovered that parents who had intended to vaccinate their children had big motivations.
They wanted to avoid the upheaval associated with the combination of strict government regulations and high coronavirus infection rates.
For instance, when vaccines for under 13s had been introduced, school children had had to undergo seven days of quarantine if they were exposed to a carrier.
Meanwhile, adults were exempted because they were vaccinated. Parents had expected to wait for a couple of weeks before getting the shot for their kids.
This is perfectly common as people tend to wait for others to get it done before they do the same, but in just a couple of weeks, things changed.
Government changes
Major changes had been made to policy by the government in January, which included abolishing the quarantine requirement for children who were exposed.
Instead, they were just asked to test regularly. Likewise, quarantine time for those infected was also reduced to one-third of what it had been during the start of the pandemic.
It had begun at 14 days and in July 2021, it was reduced to 10 days before being reduced to five days in January 2022, along with two negative tests.
Hence, parents lost their motivation to get their children vaccinated due to these changes.
Dror said that 89% of the parents who had been surveyed said that they had only wanted to vaccinate their children so they could return to school and regular life.
78% said it was due to financial resilience because quarantines affected the abilities of the parents to work and 56% cited health reasons.