“The vaccine kills,” read graffiti scrawled on a clinic in northern Israel, as vaccine deniers ramp up efforts to promote conspiracies about the coronavirus.
By World Israel News Staff
An Israel-based online group called “Independent Journalism 2020” is taking aim at the government and officials such as Professor Sharon Alroy Preis, whom the group claims is a “coronavirus spreader,” Ynet reported.
Other images circulated by the group on the messaging app Telegram included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and former Health Ministry official Itamar Grotto.
Israeli anti-vaxxers are not limiting their campaign to online activity, urging people to reserve appointments for the vaccine and then not showing up. Doing this forces vaccine providers to either scramble to use the vaccine, which becomes unusable within one day, or waste the vaccines entirely.
In a major escalation on Sunday, vaccine deniers vandalized a vaccination site in Tiberias, spray painting “the vaccine kills” on its exterior.
A month ago, two Rehovot clinics were vandalized with graffiti that called the vaccine “death” and proclaimed “we are not sheep.”
The effect of anti-vaccine campaigns remains unknown, however, there has been a drop in the number of people receiving the vaccine between the ages of 20 and 40 years, despite Israel eliminating age limits for all Israelis 16 and over last Thursday.
“I am speechless,” said a Health Ministry official quoted by Ynet . “The level of discourse among deniers has reached a point we have not yet encountered.”
Meanwhile, one anti-vaxxer told a Ynet reporter, “You are collaborating with history’s greatest conspiracy. You [journalists] are all a part of a massive sham. A witch hunt. I will not cooperate.”