A pregnant woman who died of COVID-19 overnight did not vaccinate her against the disease because she feared it would endanger her fetus, which is also dead.
In the media, Osnat Ben Shitrit’s mother and sisters encouraged people to take the vaccines, while her brother-in-law, who admits to standing behind a social media group against vaccination, remained wary of vaccination.
Ronit Sianni said her daughter wanted to be vaccinated but was concerned about its safety for pregnant women. Health officials have been asking pregnant women over the past few weeks to be vaccinated for fear they are at greater risk due to the new strains of the virus.
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“Get vaccinated, don’t wait,” Sianni told Channel 13. “It’s not a game. It’s a matter of life and death. ”
Ben Shitrit, 32, a mother of four, died at Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem in Jerusalem. Doctors could not save her 30-week-old fetus in an emergency C-section. The fetus was not infected with the virus but was born in a critical condition and did not survive, Hadassah said.
Osnat Ben Shitrit. (Instagram)
Ben Shitrit’s brother-in-law told Kan’s public broadcaster that he had set up a Facebook group against vaccination that had swelled thousands of members, and that he was still a member of several other groups.
Screenshot from video of Osnat Ben Shitrit’s brother-in-law speaking to the media. (Twitter)
The man, who was not identified in the report, said he suspended the group after Ben Shitrit’s death but remained in the other.
‘When it comes to your backyard, you understand the need to think differently. Now we understand the cost of the coronavirus, ‘he said, but he was careful to advise taking the vaccinations.
The national vaccination campaign is ‘compelling’, he said, and apparently refers to government plans to limit participation in some aspects of public life for those who have not been vaccinated or have not recovered from the disease.
“I’m not saying you should go out because you have to, but if you want to prevent death in your home, you can be vaccinated,” the man said.
He advised people to have other tests done first to determine if they already had antibodies that could be produced during asymptomatic infection with the virus.
Ben Shitrit’s two sisters told the station that the expectant mother had been in a serious condition for several days, but that she refused to be admitted to hospital.
The nurses said Ben Shitrit was already in critical condition when Ben Shitrit reached the hospital. Recognizing their mother, they appealed to the public to be vaccinated.
Ben Shitrit was healthy until she recently contracted the coronavirus and had previously had four smooth pregnancies that ended in straight births, a spokeswoman for the Hadassah Medical Center told The Times of Israel.
A Jerusalem area resident, Ben Shitrit, was admitted to hospital last Tuesday due to respiratory distress and deteriorated rapidly on Saturday night. Doctors noticed damage to several of her organs, and a large team, including cardiologists and gynecologists, was assembled at her bedside.
According to a statement from Hadassah, medics made “very prolonged” resuscitation efforts and performed an emergency caesarean section. But the mother died, and ‘despite tremendous efforts to save the fetus’ life in the premature intensive care unit’, it did not survive.
Ben Shitrit was laid to rest in Jerusalem on Sunday afternoon.
The news of her death echoed across the Israeli healthcare system, while doctors warned that it illustrated the increased danger posed to pregnant women and fetuses by the so-called British variant, which now accounts for almost all Israeli COVID cases.
Although lately the concern about the British tribe has focused on its transmissibility, not on virulence, it is likely to affect pregnant women more than the usual stress does. Last month, when the British variant spread, Israel approved vaccinations for pregnant women and began encouraging women to get the shots.
According to Hebrew media reports, there are currently 50 expectant or new mothers in the country’s hospitals, 19 of whom are in a serious condition and eight are considered critical.
The Ministry of Health has apparently set up a special task force that is looking full-time for viral hoax news that could potentially cause damage to Israel’s coronavirus vaccination.
Some Israeli anti-vaxxer Facebook groups have been allegedly removed from the Ministry of Health.
As of Sunday, more than 4.3 million citizens had at least the first dose of the two-stroke Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine used by Israel in its mass immunization process, which represents nearly half of the population. More than 2.9 million also had the second, according to figures from the Ministry of Health.
