Israel holds public hearing on COVID shots for kids 5-11

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The Health Ministry is holding a public hearing on Thursday on vaccinating children aged 5-11 against COVID, after the vaccinations were approved by the FDA last week. The online discussion, which is being held on Zoom, is being streamed live on social media and Health Ministry website beginning at 3 P.M. Thursday.

The hearing consists of three parts: explanations from medical professionals about vaccinating children; a public discussion, including different viewpoints on vaccinations; and a question-and-answer session with the expert panel with queries from the public.

Also on Thursday, the Israel Pediatric Association recommended the inoculation of children aged five to 11. The discussion to approve the vaccine campaign will be a separate meeting of experts, and is expected to be held next week; it will not be open to the public.

The forum on the inoculations includes the COVID vaccine monitoring committee and members of the epidemic management team that has been advising the Health Ministry for two decades. The ministry will make the final decision on the children’s vaccination campaign based on the expert panel’s recommendations.

During the first part of the hearing on Thursday, representatives of Pfizer will present the vaccines and provide explanations about administering them to children. Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of public health services at the Health Ministry, will also comment on the matter.

In the second part of the hearing, 20 people will speak and present their views to the members of the epidemic management team. The speakers were chosen in a lottery, and every speaker will be allotted three minutes to present their positions.

The Health Ministry decided that the speakers will comment only on “the professional issue. A discourse that will slander the members of the epidemics’ management team in a personal or group manner or employees of the Health Ministry will not be allowed. Verbal violence of any type will not be allowed during the discussion. In cases of violating this rule, the speaker’s presentation will be immediately stopped.”

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This is the first discussion held by this forum which is open to the public. The decision to hold a public discussion was inspired by similar discussions conducted by the FDA.

The Health Ministry wanted to broadcast the discussion live as a confidence-building and transparency measure regarding the vaccine, but many officials in the health system are skeptical as to whether the move will achieve its goal.

Some of the members of advisory forum expressed reservations to streaming the hearing at a meeting two weeks ago, in part because they believe their meetings to be transparent enough. The minutes of their discussions are published on the ministry’s website a few days after the meetings are held, and they include the names of the speakers and their remarks. Forum members also feared that the public debate would increase the attacks and threats they have suffered from people who oppose the vaccine.

“The majority agreed to allow opening some of the discussions to the public but opposed an open vote, in part because of the general atmosphere concerning making decisions on coronavirus matters and the personal [attacks],” one of the members of the advisory forum told Haaretz.

“If Israel was Switzerland, then maybe there wouldn’t be opposition,” he added. This came after the Health Ministry was forced to provide Alroy Preis with a security detail, after the threat level to her and her family was raised to the highest level.