Corona Virus: In Israel the Lockdown is in Stages (Judean Rose)

Corona virus is shutting us down. This is common to all of us. Here in Israel, we are seeing the COVID-19 directives coming down in stages. Though not everyone sees a stage as I do.

Some take the directives one at a time, as they come. I, on the other hand, am a gamer. In a game, the levels get progressively harder. You have to see the next move coming—if you plan to win—which move will put you ahead of the curve.

For this reason I canceled out on a wedding last minute, before they were limiting gatherings to 200. It was why I told my book club that I would not attend the next meeting, though they were not yet limiting gatherings to ten, or instituting social distancing. It’s why even before they asked us to avoid libraries, I’d stayed away from the library, though I had just 19 pages left of Rebecca before I’d run out of reading material.

(And it was a Friday morning. And I read fast. And it’s hell for me to go without books.)

It is clear to me: I can see the stages of the corona lockdown directives coming before they come, so unless I have to, I will not be leaving my home for some time, maybe months.

But it was hard when my friend’s husband died and I couldn’t hug her. It was already weird and surreal (as nighttime funerals are, anyway) when an announcement was made, “Twenty people leave the room.”

I could have looked around the room and hoped that someone else would leave. But I didn’t. I left. Because if that is what we have to do, we have to do it now.

I believe in being smart and prudent, in staying ahead of the curve.

Not everyone agrees. Why come down harder than the current decrees and directives? Perhaps they are only changing the rules of the game as the danger increases. That it’s not dangerous to do something until they tell us not to do it.

But who really knows? The decisions and directives, for all we know, are subjective. Or maybe the experts are changing their minds as they learn more about the disease. Take the library, for instance: Maybe Israeli experts hadn’t yet thought of libraries as a source of contagion. Until they did.

But I thought of it as soon I read that the virus lives on surfaces for days. What is handled with the hands more than library books? I knew this without a directive or an expert. They just hadn’t thought of it yet, or perhaps they’re breaking us in slowly, in stages. Getting us mentally used to one stage of lockdown before the next.

Who really knows?

It doesn’t matter. I know how hygiene works, how contamination and contagion do their thing. And hopefully so do you.

It’s why I asked the technician, “Did you wash your hands?” before a recent medical procedure, though she was insulted. 

Again: it doesn’t matter. Her feelings are irrelevant. In fact, they hamper her ability to deal with the public and I submitted a complaint to Israel’s Ministry of Health.

We all have to do the best we can do to stay ahead of the curve, to beat this thing, this corona virus. This is what I believe. So use your gut sense and institute good practices before the directives come down. Don’t wait for them and don’t be afraid to stick to your guns.

It’s how it has to be right now.

If we want to win.