Israel fights misinformation as vaccinations drop

Israeli authorities have stepped up efforts to counter online misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine, after seeing a sudden slowdown in the country's rapid rollout of the jab. Israel's inoculation rates are among the highest in the world, with over a quarter of the population - 2.5 million - having received both Pfizer doses and over four in ten having received the first.

But now there's been a drop in immunization rates, down from January's average of over 127,000 per day to just over 106,000 per day in February, according to health ministry statistics. The reluctance of some population segments to get vaccinated is a key reason why infection rates remain high. Israel, a country of 9.3 million people, has reported over 5,000 new cases each day over the past week, according to the ministry.

In all, the country has recorded over 723,000 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic and nearly 5,400 deaths — over 20% of them in the past month. Last week Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has pinned his reelection hopes on the vaccination campaign, said the only obstacle to completing the task was "the fake news and the superstitious and sometimes malicious beliefs that are planted in the public and on the Internet."

The Health Ministry has reportedly invested millions of dollars in its efforts to educate the public. It has beefed up a digital task force to hit back at spurious claims about the vaccines. Einav Shimron, a senior official in the ministry, said that trackers in a fake news command center were monitoring social media for anti-vaccination posts, and sending alerts to the Ministry of Justice and police. There are other initiatives too, seeking to reach out to people through physicians and faith leaders.

In the ultra-Orthodox community, where internet use is low, the response is often more low tech. Anti-vaccination rabbis have posted false claims on posters known as pashkevils, commonly used to spread messages among the faithful. The ministry is countering with pashkevils of its own. At the same time, authorities are devising incentives for people to go get the jab.

The Health and Culture Ministries said Sunday that museums, libraries, concert venues and other cultural events will reopen later this month — but only to those who have been fully immunized. Avishai Matia, an anti-vaccine activist whose Facebook and Twitter accounts were suspended earlier this month, insisted the Pfizer vaccine was an "experimental drug" being tested on Israeli citizens, while other countries were holding back. But the Pfizer jab has been rigorously tested and rolled out in several countries worldwide, including the US and in Europe. In exchange for getting sufficient quantities for its population, Israel has agreed to share data with Pfizer, though it is not conducting any experiments.