Allow me to borrow a pearl from Winston Churchill for a moment, who said during the Second World War and fight against Nazi Germany: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
The above perfectly describes the stage we are now in, as of Sunday, in the national and global war against the coronavirus.
We must stop using terms such as "back to routine" or "exit strategy," which help the media and government sell illusions. Instead, we need to use more modest, cautious, and correct language, such as "a strategy for coping with the pandemic," and "returning to a new and unfamiliar routine that will go on for a long time, and is far different from anything mankind has known up to now."
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Although it's very difficult to wrap our heads around such change and to adjust, today is the beginning of a new and lengthy routine in the shadow of the coronavirus, which will accompany us for many months to come – possibly even years.
Within the framework of our new lives in the shadow of the coronavirus, there will be a very slow, gradual return to work, commerce, social and family life, and school. And an even later return to leisure activities, tourism, flights, and hotels. At any point, there could be a stoppage of the gradual lifting of restrictions – or even reinstatement of restrictions, in accordance with the scope of the virus and the increase, heaven forbid, of patients on ventilators and deaths.
Our new lives in the shadow of the virus won't resemble what we knew before the pandemic. It isn't "just another flu" as a small handful of senior doctors would have us believe – some of them irresponsible charlatans lacking a moral compass, who boast of their senior positions, past or present, in the Health Ministry.
Based on the cumulative data, the corona pandemic – for which there is no cure or vaccine and has killed tens of thousands of people in agonizing fashion – is unprecedented in the annals of medical history. It has pushed the healthcare systems in some countries and cities to the point of collapse, or near collapse as we have seen in Italy, Spain, France, and New York. Israel is in relatively good condition in terms of the mortality rate in proportion to the population (1.61%), while other countries, such as Belgium and Spain, are suffering from extremely high mortality rates.
We all have a long, complex, and challenging road ahead of us in the coming weeks and months, beginning with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Holocaust Remembrance Day followed by Memorial Day for Israel's Fallen Soldiers, Independence Day, Lag Ba'Omer, Shavuot. Then through swimming season with pools that might not even open at all, followed by summer break, which could see the cancellation of children's activities, day camps, and other frameworks.
How we all behave in this new routine and throughout the holiday season will determine whether Israel sustains its good numbers on a global level or, heaven forbid, we deteriorate in the direction of places we don't want to resemble these days. This will require unprecedented discipline, patience, and sacrifice from us all.
Israel has remained somewhat ahead of the global curve in terms of the morbidity rate and even more importantly, in terms of the number of fatalities, critically ill, and patients in need of ventilators. This is largely due to the timely, determined and responsible actions by the Health Ministry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who quickly grasped the magnitude of the worst global health crisis in nearly 100 years.
However, Israel's relatively good situation is also exceedingly tenuous and there are no guarantees it will continue. Health Ministry officials are worried that returning to normal too quickly and irresponsibly could be catastrophic. It's already clear to local authorities that life as we knew it won't come back for a very long time, at least until a vaccine is developed.
The public demand for a quick exit from the quarantine – which is ravaging the country economically – is understandable, but we must adhere to cautious and measured policies, as we have up to now.
We need to withstand the irresponsible, negligent, and, sadly, politically, economically and, medically biased calls to hastily end the quarantine. Or we risk erasing all the considerable strides Israel has made to this point in the fight against the coronavirus.
