Almost two-thirds of Israeli adults will find it difficult to trust the government as long as the protocols of the Corona Cabinet are kept confidential for three decades, according to a new study conducted at the University of Haifa. 

Published in the journal Risk Management and Healthcare Policy under the title “Who are the “Real” Experts? The Debate Surrounding COVID-19 Health Risk Management: An Israeli Case Study,” the study also found that about half of the public believe that health experts who criticize the Health Ministry decisions on coping with COVID-19 endanger their careers. 

The system, said Prof. Anat Gesser-Edelsburg – head of the health promotion program at the university’s School of Public Health and head of the Research Center for Health and Risk Communication who led the research – said that “the scientific controversy among experts can give decisionmakers the tools to understand the complexity of the problem. Therefore, it is important to listen to all positions, even those criticizing the official positions of the system.” 

The major challenge during a crisis such as COVID-19 is how to translate science into concrete guidelines for the citizens. In the literature it appears that the issue of trust between politicians and experts and between citizens and politicians must be addressed to build resilience among the citizens.

The uncertainty surrounding the Corona crisis in the past year is also evident in these days, when there is a fear of a new outbreak of the disease and the controversy surrounding the vaccination of children aged 12 to 15 is being conducted publicly in all media and social networks, she wrote. 

The study found two prominent approaches to dealing with various issues related to the management of the Corona health crisis – the coalition, is that of the Health Ministry, the various committees of experts advising it and the government and the Corona Cabinet comprised of officials and experts. The second is opposition groups of various medical professionals such as the Public Emergency council for the Corona Crisis (not laymen on the social media). 

In the current study conducted between November 2020 and February 2021 (before the inauguration of the new Bennett/Lapid coalition government), Gesser-Edelsburg, doctoral student Rana Hajazi from the School of Public Health and veteran pollster Dr. Mina Zemach sought to examine the public positions regarding the various experts on the subject. 

In a study conducted using integrated, qualitative and quantitative research methods, 924 participants were interviewed, and 435 news items from press conferences, media interviews, official letters, social media posts, government articles and controversial official guidelines were sampled. 

The results of the study show that 47% of the public thought that health experts who criticized the decisions of the Health Ministry endangered their careers. It was further found that 41% of the public equally had faith in health experts advising government ministries on the pandemic and the experts who criticized them, while 11% did not believe any of them. 

Public support for the government was on issues related to vaccines while support for experts opposed to ministry policy was on issues related to the implications of closures and transparency. For example, with regard to vaccines, 68% of the public thought that herd immunity could not be obtained naturally without the Pfizer vaccine; 72% of the public thought that the vaccine would protect them from Corona infection, and 85% thought it was important to vaccinate people aged 65 and over. Despite this high support for vaccines, still 60% of the public thought that the government had not presented them with the shortcomings of the vaccines.

On the other hand, regarding the consequences of the closures, 87% thought that children suffered during the school closures; 64% of the public thought that the damage to the state economy as a result of the closures and restrictions hurt it more than the Corona itself, and 63% of the respondents thought the closures and isolation of those exposed to the virus caused more damage to their emotional state than the virus itself. 

“We suggest that rethinking can have an impact along two lines. The first entails the inclusion of experts from the behavioral sciences who can show the committees how they are conducting their discourse and recommend dialectic discussion methods. The second involves providing consistent exposure to experts from the opposition who can make their opinions heard without fear and thus challenge the system to think and draw conclusions,” write the authors. 

In addition, the groups advising the government should respect minority opinions and communicate these to the public, which expects full transparency. Thus, minority opinions must be synthesized into the reports communicated to the public to reinforce public trust in the decisionmaking process. Moreover, the discourse between the various experts must be respectful, open and accepting,”

The corona itself.”Disagreements are not a bad thing, as they minimized dogmatic views, Gesser-Edelsburg continued. “We suggest that rethinking can have an impact on two levels. “Consistent exposure to experts from opposition professionals who can voice their opinions without fear challenges the system to think and draw conclusions,” the authors concluded.