Israeli hospital backs down on vaccine mandate following Frontline News report

Israel's Laniado Hospital today walked back the vaccine mandate it was forcing on nursing students less than 48 hours following an exclusive Frontline News report. 

The Tuesday report revealed that a group of ten nursing novitiates were recently given an ultimatum by Netanya’s Laniado Hospital that they must get injected with the COVID-19 shots in order to proceed with their clinicals.  

The news came as a disheartening shock to the nursing students, who have been studying for a year-and-a-half to become nurses in Israel. 

The students were told the hospital is mandating that every student who has recovered from COVID-19 get at least one dose, while those who have not recovered from COVID-19 must get at least three.  

But soon after the report was published, the students were notified by Nursing School Director Ester Strauss that they are no longer required to get the injections, as long as they can show a Green Pass, even if expired. The directive was reportedly handed down from the hospital’s Infectious Diseases Department. 

The Green Pass is Israel’s vaccine passport, issued to those who were injected with the COVID-19 shots or recovered from COVID-19. Since the students already contracted COVID-19 at some point during the pandemic, they can show an expired Green Pass and be allowed to begin their clinicals. 

Some of the students, however, when faced with an existential threat to their careers, buckled under the pressure and took the shots. 

At least one of the newly vaccinated students is already showing signs of vaccine injury, including itching and heavy menstrual bleeding. 

Israel now exclusively uses the Pfizer vaccine which, according to Pfizer, triggered so many adverse reactions that the pharma giant had to hire 1,800 employees just to sift through the adverse event reports. 

“Pfizer has also taken a [sic] multiple actions to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports," said Pfizer in its 2021 post-marketing experience report. “To date, Pfizer has onboarded approximately 600 additional fulltime employees (FTEs). More are joining each month with an expected total of more than 1,800 additional resources by the end of June 2021,” the company added.