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by UnHerd Staff
Tuesday, 18
January 2022
UnHerd Staff
Video
16:13

Israeli vaccine advisor: “We have made mistakes”

Professor Cyrille Cohen talks herd immunity and his pandemic regrets
by UnHerd Staff

Professor Cyrille Cohen is head of Immunology at Bar Ilan University and a member of the advisory committee for vaccines for the Israeli Government. In a wide-ranging and forthright interview, the Professor tells Freddie Sayers:

  • The Green Pass / vaccine passport concept is no longer relevant in the Omicron era and should be phased out (he expects it to be in short order in Israel)
  • He and his colleagues were surprised and disappointed that the vaccines did not prevent transmission, as they had originally hoped
  • The biggest mistake of the pandemic in Israel was closing schools and education
  • Widespread infection is now an inevitable part of future immunity — otherwise known as herd immunity
  • Omicron has accelerated the pandemic into the endemic phase, in which Covid will be “like flu”

KEY QUOTES

Especially with Omicron, where we don’t see virtually any difference, there is a very narrow gap between people vaccinated and non-vaccinated, both can get infected with a virus, more or less at the same pace.
- Cyrille Cohen, UnHerdTV

On the behavioural science behind the Green Pass:

On the risks and rewards of herd immunity:

Herd immunity is a consequence for me. It’s not an objective, it’s not a goal. There is a thin nuance here, if I may say, that people have to grasp. I’m not saying to people go and get infected, I don’t think that this is a model that we need to adopt.
- Cyrille Cohen, UnHerdTV

On Israeli school closures:

There is one mistake, I think that we made, and that I’m extremely sorry for that. We have made a few mistakes, but it was education. For me education was the thing we shouldn’t have touched. Never, never.
- Cyrille Cohen, UnHerdTV

On the acceleration from pandemic to endemic:

I think it’s going to be like flu, I think there is going to be bad waves and better waves, with a better immunity at the level of the population, with better vaccines with better treatment. In that sense, and I’m extremely cautious, there is a possibility that Omicron will accelerate that transition.
- Cyrille Cohen, UnHerdTV

On vaccine mandates:

I think that vaccination is a personal choice. And I always said, I believe it is so. But that choice has some consequences. And here, there is a problem in society. If you are over 50, 60, and you’re saying I don’t want to get vaccinated, will you be, and I’m gonna ask a provocative question, will you be willing to renounce on the possibility of getting taken care of in hospitals?
- Cyrille Cohen, UnHerdTV

Join the discussion

  • Outstanding and thank you Freddie for doing all this work – this is what journalists need to be doing. Not taking the “party line” but actually digging in, asking difficult questions, looking at all authority with a skeptical eye and getting to the truth.

  • So – what are the lessons ? Thinking at the beginning in April/May 2020, I thought: Vaccination- then immunity, either natural or vaccinated – then, it’s like flu. First Lesson: Scientists often don’t know and should not pretend they do know. Put another way: scientists must resist the temptation to play God. Of the tens of interviews of scientists I have watched since COVID started, how many admitted they didn’t have a clue ? Yes, it’s zero. Second Lesson: Use Common Sense. Don’t “Follow the Science” which is only a political way of blaming everything bad that happens on someone else. Third: Stay Calm and Rational, Don’t Over-React. Closing schools was a wild over-reaction.

  • Great comment. The power of this interview, imo, is the balance and nuance. Prof. Cohen acknowledged policy mistakes in education–fair enough. Nobody can expect advisors to be infallible in a fast changing situation.
    His comments about the green pass recognized that, in one regard, they’re not necessary because the vaccinated can be infected and infectious like the unvaccinated. But he is also clearly a proponent of vaccines because they are good at preventing severe disease. So I sense a grudging approval of green passes as a tool to encourage/coerce vaccination.
    I also liked his emphasis on the fact that the virus will probably be with us forever and some years will be bad and some better (like the flu), and that we can’t predict exactly what will happen so we have to keep all options open.
    A very encouraging and candid interview (kudos to the professor and to Freddie) but I feel it must be taken as a whole.

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