Israel Is NOT Vaccinating COVID-19 Infected Persons
I was recently made aware by my good friend, who is an Israeli physician, that Israel’s strategy for COVID-19 vaccination differs from ours in the United States — in a major way.
It is a fact that Israeli public health officials have been far more methodical and committed than their US counterparts in their COVID-19 screening practices and requirements since last year — with a far higher percentage of the Israeli people, if not the entire population with symptoms or exposures, screened to date. This, compared to the haphazard American approach to COVID-19 screening.
So the Israelis have a good handle on who was, and is, infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
But most importantly, my friend informed me that the Israelis are NOT indiscriminately vaccinating previously or currently infected individuals.
Simply put, in Israel if you’ve had a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, you do not get the vaccine — as a matter of policy.
I confirmed this information on the official Israeli Ministry of Health’s public information site, where it is explicitly stated under the category of “Who will NOT get the vaccine at this stage?”, that “Certified recovered COVID-19 patients” are excluded from vaccination.
To be clear, because Israel has a comprehensive and appropriate COVID-19 screening program, the country has a good handle on who the infected are — AND, unlike our indiscriminate vaccination approach, the Israelis are AVOIDING vaccination of previously or currently infected citizens.
As our nation’s public health officials, and the American press, point to Israel as a remarkable indicator of the COVID-19 vaccine’s efficacy and utilitarian success, we must carefully consider all the things that nation is doing to vaccinate cogently, quickly and SAFELY.
Vaccinating the previously or currently COVID-19 infected is what the Israelis are NOT doing — and for good reason.
But, we in the United States seem oblivious to the downsides and potential peril of indiscriminately vaccinating the infected — nor are we willing to consider the upside of excluding the infected from vaccination.
If reason were to prevail in America, our public health officials would realize that stringently excluding the previously and currently COVID-19 infected persons would not only protect these persons from potential harm, it would also free up millions of vaccine doses to be safely administered to the uninfected and un-immune.
Why is the Israeli public health agency is acting so stringently to avoid indiscriminate vaccination of its infected citizens?
Of course the primary answer is that Israel is a country that is extremely deliberate and cautious about the defense, safety and protection of its people — and it uses scientific principles and advanced technology to so.
So the scientific answer to why Israel is NOT vaccinating the already infected is that cogent Israeli public health officials and physicians recognize that: 1) the majority of the naturally infected are already immune to the virus and 2) vaccinating persons whose tissues have been recently infected with the virus risks causing dangerous systemic inflammation and tissue injury.
Perhaps public health officials in the US and other nations of the world can learn a lesson or two from our Israeli friends.
In my opinion as an American physician and immunologist, indiscriminate vaccination of the previously or currently infected, will become known as an American public health disaster for the daily growing “minority subset” in harm’s way.
Let us hope by the time our public health leaders recognize this danger, the irreversible harm to America is not a fait accompli.
I do recognize that there is enormous political pressure on the FDA and leaderships, to endorse and install a fast and broad scale vaccination program to save our nation — and this pressure is very appropriate. And I know that in the exuberant American push to vastly vaccinate all citizens, safety has taken a back seat. Some very well-decorated professionals even equate any suggestion of safety concerns, as being a mindless attempt at creating vaccine hesitancy in America.
BUT, if ever there has been a time for public health leaders like Drs. Woodcock and Marks of FDA and Dr. Wollensky of CDC to use their political capital in executive government, to defend the safety of the American people in a balanced way, the time is now — when the entire US population is being treated with one single and newly developed biological product in a very short span of time. A vaccine, whose safety in the previously infected in the midst of a pandemic has not been adequately tested or established in clinical trials — this, is a grievous error.
Indiscriminate vaccination of already infected Americans in this pandemic, is likely to be an unprecedented iatrogenic danger to many lives — albeit in the minority. And to defend this “minority subset” from is the duty of the United States Public Health Service and all our public health leaders, like Drs. Woodcock and Marks, who are correctly promoting broad scale vaccination at the same time.
Nuanced balance and reason is possible to achieve in American public health — and large scale vaccine efficacy can be achieved and reconciled with safety.
Just look at how our Israeli friends are doing it. America has a lot to learn — quickly.
