Coronavirus infections are very low in the community, but officials fear lack of immunization could lead to a serious outbreak, especially among Bedouins
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BIR HADAJ, southern Israel Five months of government campaigning to vaccinate Israeli citizens against the coronavirus have left little trace in the southern Bedouin town of Bir Hadaj.
Bir Hadaj has the dismal honor of being the country’s least-vaccinated municipality. Just 2 percent of the town’s 2,000-odd residents are vaccinated; in the median Israeli city, some 56% of total residents are immunized.
“There are people here who would rather die than be vaccinated,” said Salim Denfiri, a Bir Hadaj resident.
Denfiri says he decided to get immunized. But when he tried to convince his nearly 100-year-old mother, she asked him if he was trying to “finish her off,” he said.
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A health worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine in East Jerusalem on February 3, 2021. (AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)
With coronavirus cases rising and conspiracy theories chilling vaccine turnout, Arab Israeli health officials say they are facing an uphill battle to crush the infection curve before the advent of the Ramadan holiday in about a month.
“Just a month ago, our situation was far better than that of the Jewish community and the ultra-Orthodox. But the situation for us today is now worse than both of them,” said Dr. Bishara Bisharat, who works in the Health Ministry’s coronavirus response unit.