Four months into the coronavirus pandemic and counting, we can’t even begin to feel confident about reopening. While much of the rest of the world is cautiously returning to normal, cases are spiking across the country.
While our own area was hit hard in the first wave, officials and healthcare providers responded in ways that should have been a model for the rest of the country. That much of their example went unheeded has exposed flaws in our nation’s leadership, its body politic and its health care system.
Israel too is facing a second wave, just two months after declaring victory over the novel coronavirus (see story on page 7). Sky News Middle East correspondent Mark Stone described the price we all are paying for overconfidence. “In Israel, the lockdown was rightly lifted. But then the armor against the virus fell away fast: the masks slipped down, the distancing got smaller, the gatherings grew larger. We are suffering the consequences now.”
