Expert who backs COVID vaccines says she’s getting threats to her life
Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, who recently recommended booster shot for older Israelis, files a police complaint after being told to ‘kill yourself’
An Israeli doctor who has been involved in numerous studies on coronavirus vaccines and advocates immunization filed a police complaint Tuesday after receiving death threats.
Among the threatening messages sent to Dr. Gili Regev-Yochay, director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit at Sheba Medical Center, were “Kill yourself before you recommend another person inject [a vaccine]” and “May you suffer from paralysis until your last day.”
The messages were sent anonymously.
Regev-Yochay has made regular interview appearances during the pandemic and the network noted she is identified with the Health Ministry’s vaccination campaign, making her a target of vaccine opponents.
She was recently among experts who recommended that those over 60 be administered a third coronavirus vaccine dose.
In June, Kan news reported that Sheba’s Prof. Galia Rahav, a member of the Health Ministry panel that has been advising on COVID-19 vaccinations, received death threats during the process of approval for the inoculation of children.
Among the threatening messages sent to Rahav were images of tombstones with her name and a pulsa dinora, a Jewish death curse that literally translates as “lashes of fire.”
“Threats, violence, and aggressiveness should not dictate the path taken by a nation. Sheba experts will continue to express their professional position freely and publicly,” the hospital said at the time.
In March, Rahav received a message that read, “Galia, I hope and long for a day when God will soon take you,” while another described her as “Hitler’s future neighbor in hell.”
Other health officials have also faced threats over the vaccination campaign and been compared to Nazis.
