The Prime Minister's Office is beginning to formulate a plan that includes a number of options for vaccinating children through the local authorities.
Israel Hayom reported that over the weekend, officials from the Prime Minister's Office spoke with heads of local authorities and asked them to prepare for vaccination of youth.
A number of ideas arose regarding tactics to increase the rate of vaccination and circumvent the opposition of Minister of Education Yifat Shasha-Biton. One of the ideas is a monetary reward for schools that display a significant amount of vaccinations. In the event of strong opposition to vaccination within schools, the option arose of setting up vaccination mobile stations outside schools that children could access at the end of school hours.
In addition, officials from the Prime Minister's Office sought to recruit a 'child vaccination czar' - a local figure who would oversee the move to give the issue special attention, focus on public opinion of education staff and more.
Last week, it was reported in Israel Hayom that after Education Minister Shasha-Biton publicly stated that she opposes vaccines in schools, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked began work on a strategy that would bypass her and allow vaccinations in local authorities.
Bennett and Shaked spoke last weekend with a number of heads of authorities and asked them to take up the issue of vaccines in schools and promote it in the educational institutions in their cities. Shaked spoke with the mayor of Beit Shemesh, Aliza Bloch, who suggested transferring the vaccinations to the responsibility of Tipat Halav. According to Bloch, in this way there is no need to complicate matters related to the health clinics and entry into schools.
Bennett and Shaked have more than once spoken encouragingly of delegating powers to the heads of the local authorities, who are most familiar with what is happening in their respective authorities.