A Knesset panel approved controversial legislation on Tuesday that will allow the Health Ministry to give local authorities personal details of residents who have not been vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The proposal is expected to be passed into law on Wednesday in its second and third readings.
The Knesset Labor, Welfare, and Health Committee approved the bill for its second and third readings in parliament after changing one aspect of the bill so that details of those who are fully vaccinated will not be given to the local authorities.
“Hopefully in the next step they will tell those who have not been vaccinated that they should not come to work,” said committee chair MK Haim Katz.
Younger people have shown more reluctance to get the vaccination and the Health Ministry hopes the legislation will enable local authorities to advocate immunization among residents who don’t want the shots.
But the Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians published a letter ahead of the meeting cautioning that the “legislation will cause short-term and long-term damage to the local authority itself, undermining trust when the benefit is limited and questionable,” Channel 12 News reported.
The letter was sent to Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, coronavirus czar Nachman Ash, and other senior health ministry officials. A copy was also given to Katz by representatives of the Israeli Medical Association, the country’s largest doctors union.
“The medical information centralized by the HMOs is an important resource for promoting the vaccination campaign, in part because it is a tool used by the HMOs to prioritize vaccines according to age and background diseases. However, the information in the possession of the HMOs is information that has been determined to be kept confidential,” the letter stressed.
Chair of the public health union Prof. Nadav Davidovitch told Channel 12 that the union fully supports the immunization program “but we distinguish between actions to encourage immunization and violation of individual rights.”
Under the terms of the bill, for a three-month period, the Health Ministry will be permitted to provide the local authorities and the Education Ministry with personal and contact details of residents for the purpose of promoting the mass inoculation program. Information will include data on those who have had the first of the two-shot vaccination but did not turn up for the second dose three weeks later, as is expected, and those who had no injections at all.
Edelstein announced Tuesday that more than 70 percent of Israelis over 16 have received their first vaccine dose.
