By Gilad Atzmon
2-7-21

Earlier this week, The New York Times praised the Israeli mass vaccination experiment. "In the most extensive real-world test so far, Israel has demonstrated that a robust coronavirus vaccination program can have a quick and powerful impact, showing the world a plausible way out of the pandemic. Cases of Covid-19 and hospitalizations dropped dramatically among people who were vaccinated within just a few weeks... early data suggests that the vaccines are working nearly as well in practice as they did in clinical trials."

For one reason or another, the Israeli media is not as enthusiastic as the NY Times. On the penultimate day of Israel's third lockdown, the most read Israeli online outlet, Ynet, carried the following headline: Spectacle of Failure: Third Lockdown Compared to Previous Ones .

The article unveiled the hopelessness and duplicitous nature of Israel's COVID strategy and politics. Ynet points out that, despite the baseless promises made by the government and its prime minister, after six weeks in lockdown the situation didn't improve at all. Despite Israel leading the world mass vaccination experiment, its COVID transmission rate is among the worst in the Western world.

The Ynet article stresses that "tomorrow at 7:00 AM the third lockdown will end, a month and a half after it was imposed - and the COVID data is much worse today compared with the situation at the beginning... at the point of departure of the third lockdown at the end of December, the rate of positive tests was 4.9%, the number of critical hospitalized patients was then 949, the number of verified cases was 4,010. Prior to the tightening of the lockdown, on January 8, the positive rate was 6.6%, the number of critical patients - 949, and the number of verified cases - 7,644.

At the peak of the third lockdown, the rate of positive cases reached 10.2%, the number of seriously ill patients climbed to 1,203 and the daily number of COVID diagnoses reached 10,114. Since then, the numbers have dropped by just a little. On Tuesday, the positive rate was 8.9%, the number of patients was 1,101 and the number of verified cases was 7,183. Even the R number, which determines whether the epidemic is spreading, has risen again to 1 in recent days."

The combined number of vaccinated Israelis and those who recovered from COVID in the past should have provided Israel with a relatively strong herd immunity, enough to defeat the virus or at least reduce its reproduction rate. But the facts on the ground suggest the complete opposite. The transmission rate in Israel is higher than pretty much anywhere else. In fact the troubling correlation between mass vaccination and illness suggests that the more you vaccinate, the more COVID cases you find.

As if this is not enough, not more than two cities are castigated as 'COVID green cities.' One of those cities is Rahat, a Palestinian Bedouin municipality where the vaccination campaign is generally ignored. The Israelis can also see that amongst the COVID green communities, the Israeli Arab villages and towns are vastly overrepresented. Again, this may have something to do with their general defiance of the vaccine . In short, if we learn something from the 'Israeli experiment' it may be possible to conclude that the less you vaccinate, the more healthy your community is as a whole.     

The evolutionary theory that may lead to such a scenario is also far from being too complicated: struggling to survive, the virus mutates and then attacks those who are relatively unprotected (the unvaccinated). I explored the possibility of a conflict between the 'vaccinated' and the 'unvaccinated' three weeks ago . At the time, some Israeli scientists hypothesised a possible horrific scenario in which the vaccinated are identified as spreaders of some lethal mutants and are pushed into isolation.

In Israel, the IDF's intelligence (AMAN) also runs an independent COVID research unit that estimates the risks imposed by the situation and evaluates relevant strategies. Earlier today AMAN published its warning that in the "coming weeks a sharp rise in cases is expected following the end of the lockdown and the rapid spread of the British mutant." AMAN stressed that  "more than ever, personal responsibility and adherence to the guidelines are required."

With its decision to voluntarily make itself Pfizer's testing ground, the Israelis are providing us with some invaluable understanding of the vaccine and the risks that are involved in COVID mass vaccination. If, for instance, we notice in the coming weeks that the IDF's intelligence was wrong in its prediction and there is no significant change in the number of cases or deaths, we may be able to conclude that it isn't social distancing that spreads the disease (in its current state) but probably the vaccine itself. If morbidity is reduced and case numbers drop, we may even be able to look into the possibility that social integration actually reduces transmission. If the number of cases rises sharply as the IDF predicts, we may be able to conclude that the vaccine had a very little impact on Israel's herd immunity. In fact, the campaign was a spectacle of failure.

There are now estimates that 50% of Israelis do not believe in the vaccine and the rationale behind it. Israeli vaccination centers are currently empty despite pressure mounted by the government and municipalities on citizens to get themselves 'protected.' Many Israelis believe that the national vaccine campaign is there to serve PM Netanyahu political goal: a victorious image that would win him the next election and may save him from his current legal complications.