It all started on February 5, when 15 Israelis were found to be among the 3,700 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship – later known as the “coronavirus cruise ship” – who were forced to quarantine for two weeks on the banks of Japan after health officials confirmed that passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. I wrote about this, and then about the struggle of the Foreign Ministry to release these Israelis after their isolation and bring them back to the country. About the mission of Health Ministry deputy director-general Itamar Grotto to Japan to ensure the proper care of our four sick citizens at a military hospital outside of Tokyo. It feels like a lifetime ago that Magen David Adom paramedics put on those alien-like personal protective equipment suits and transferred the returnees to the country’s new coronavirus ward at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer – the only such unit at the time. The travelers were put into isolation rooms. “Sheba Medical Center has launched the first known coronavirus telemedicine program in the world this week, according to the hospital,” I reported at the beginning of the month – a scoop. “The program, which is being tested on Israeli patients suspected of having the respiratory virus, is twofold, according to Dr. Galia Barkai, head of telemedicine services at Sheba.” The hospital launched an innovative combination of virtual care using a robot and a telemedicine application. Within weeks, coronavirus units started opening up across the country. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and outgoing Health Ministry director-general Moshe Bar Siman Tov started paying Israelis near-nightly visits to their living rooms in the form of briefings about the state of the coronavirus in Israel. I was the news editor (and still am), but suddenly my health reporter hobby became a COVID-19 obsession and I would stand in front of the nightly news and then attend those briefings to understand what was going to happen next. My days were filled with interviews with heads of hospitals and infectious disease specialists and my nights were filled with print outs from international and Israeli websites writing about the novel virus. Before Shabbat, I would print out research reports and data analyses, Excel spreadsheets of infection rates by city, and then pour over them for hours at a time, trying to remember the highlights so that immediately after sundown I could jump onto my computer and write it. “‘1 mil. Israelis with coronavirus is conservative,’ disease expert says,’” I wrote one day. I explained why Israel should lead efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 in Gaza and how coronavirus led to a surge in online new consumption, which has still not quite gone away. I questioned: Is corona just a bad flu? How many people should we be testing each day? Could the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak be Israel’s first herd immunity model? Can you get COVID-19 twice? And how did Israelis catch corona? MY ARTICLES broke down the restrictions in English for our readers and explained the virus’s symptoms to encourage people not to panic when they sneezed. I critically assessed Israel’s testing policy, lockdown orders and use of masks, and I shared with the world the hope of an oral vaccine being developed by MIGAL – Galilee Research Institute, an intramuscular vaccine being designed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research, a plasma-based passive vaccine being prepared by Magen David Adom, and Pluristem’s innovative placenta cell therapy to help get COVID-19 patients get off ventilation. There were heart-wrenching stories, such as when 49-year-old Tamar Perets-Levi, a widow from Lod, died of the virus, leaving her twin four-year-old boys as orphans; and the passing of Rabbi Yeshayahu Heber, the founder of the NGO Gift of Life, who died at 55. There were miracles, too. United Hatzalah head Eli Beer was hospitalized at University of Miami Hospital for around six weeks. Most of that time he was in a coma and intubated. But Beer, who helped found the country’s second-largest emergency medical service, survived. “I was sure I was not waking up,” he told me on our first call after his return to Israel, but “angels were watching over me.” For a blink, it appeared as if Israel had surfaced from the coronavirus with scrapes and that it was time to move on, but this euphoria was short lived. The virus, it seems, is still among us and we don’t really know for how long. We also don’t fully understand the long-term impact that the disease will have on the country. How many lives will be lost from the lockdown – to domestic abuse, suicide, starvation – rather than to the virus itself? Me too. I have changed from these past few months. I don’t sleep as well as night. I am a little depressed and somewhat shell-shocked at the fragility of life as we know it. A car accident. A heart attack. A terror attack. Individual lives are altered forever; a global plague and the world has transformed. We need a hug but we are afraid to touch. We stand two meters from each other at the crosswalk. We cannot see the joy or compassion of a smile through our masks. We cannot gather. But mostly we must come to terms that we are never really in control. Whether you believe in God or some other higher power, coronavirus has shown that there is something greater than us – a plan that we didn’t write. “And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises kings up; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding” (Daniel 2:21). Coronavirus has taught me to appreciate my children more, to love them more furiously. It has told me to breathe the fresh air on my morning run a little deeper. This morning, I worked out harder than I usually do – testing my muscles and my mind. During my exercise, I watched the sunrise, too. “I will push myself to the maximum,” I told myself, “take advantage of every minute.” It’s a lesson though that is easy to forget as the chaos of school lunches and ponytails takes over. We do it every day, promise ourselves we’re going to change. When we don’t, we believe that tomorrow the sun will rise again in a sky of pink and orange and yellow. Covering coronavirus has reminded me that sometimes we don’t have all the facts, but we always have faith. The writer is news editor and head of online content and strategy for The Jerusalem Post.
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