Poster Child for COVID Shot in Israel Dies Suddenly of Heart Attack

The “poster child” for the Israeli government’s national campaign to vaccinate children in Israel against COVID-19 died on Sept. 28, 2023, a few days after suffering a sudden heart attack while taking a bath. The child, eight-year-old Yonatan Moshe Erlichman, was featured in a 12-minute promotional video produced by the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council in 2020 and funded through a government program called “Shushki in the Land of Binyamin,” aimed at educating kids about the importance of messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID shots.^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11}

Yonatan, who was the son and grandson of two prominent doctors, pediatrician Ira Erlichman, MD of Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem and Mati Erlichman, MD, former director of pediatrics at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, had reportedly received at least one mRNA COVID shot. A causal connection between the shot and Yonatan’s death has not been established.^{3 4 5 6 7 8}

Yonatan’s family issued the following statement:

Our Yonatan Moshe passed away a short time ago. On the eve of Yom Kippur, Yonatan went into cardiac arrest in our home, and since then we have struggled by his side after he collapsed. With love, we thank all those dear to us, who were by our side during the last days of his life.^{2 4 5 6 9}

Promotional Ad: We Have No Choice in Getting COVID Shot

In a promotional video entitled “Shuski explains what isolation is and how to deal with it.” Yonatan appears and the child is seen talking with Shuski, a “friendly puppet ‘child,” that is urging people to get the COVID shot when it becomes available. According to English translations of the video, Yonatan and Shuski talk about how the puppet’s brother is quarantined and might die. At that point, Yonatan suggests that Shuski talk to Dr. Erlichman (Yonatan’s father), and Dr. Erlichman talks about the importance of masking, social distancing and getting tested for COVID.^{5 10}

At one point in the video, Shuski asks Dr. Erlichman, “when will coronavirus end?” Dr. Erlichman then describes childhood vaccinations and how successful they were in eliminating many childhood diseases, emphasizing that coronavirus will also end up being eliminated. Shuski says something about not liking needles,¹⁰ and Dr. Erlichman responds…

Nobody likes needles, but we don’t have a choice.^{5 10}

In response to Yonatan’s death, one Israeli commentator on social medial reportedly wrote:

Where are the headlines? The investigations? How many more children will die on the golden altar? In particular, there are already two controlled studies indicating that mRNA vaccines cause heart problems… Remember that at any given moment this can happen to your beloved children and grandchildren.^{5 8 11}

Poster Child for COVID Vaccination in Argentina Died Suddenly

Yonatan is not the first poster child for COVID vaccination advertising campaigns to die suddenly. On Nov. 3, 2022, four-year-old Santino Godoy Blanco, who served as a national poster child in an advertisement in Argentina promoting COVID vaccination for children, died suddenly of what was officially noted on the death certificate as “bilateral pneumonia,” although doctors had repeatedly misdiagnosed the child’s symptoms in the two days prior to his death.^{4 5 12 13}

Reportedly, there is no evidence that Santino’s death was related to a COVID shot. However, following the boy’s death, the Argentine government decided to withdraw its COVID vaccination campaign “from all platforms, both in static and audiovisual advertisements.”^{4 12}

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