Running the morning after coronavirus

It was as if I was running on a path I had never run on before, the morning after the government lifted the restriction on doing exercise more than 500 meters from home. 

With each step I discovered some cool place I had never seen. I felt the concrete under my feet, the incline of that first hill, and the sun - the glorious sun - beaming down on my face and soaking through my skin and into my blood, igniting my heart and my soul.

I have run nearly every day for as long as I can remember. However, since the coronavirus crisis spread throughout Israel, my only exercise became the 15-kilometer walk back and forth from my office (thank goodness journalists are considered essential workers!). Anyone who runs as a way of life understands that walking is not the same thing.

Moreover, my destination was work, and I would spend the hour trek on WhatsApp and on my phone, checking the news and checking in with my staff and our reporters. 

When I run, my phone stays at home. 

With each breath of fresh air, I became more grateful for nature and freedom, for my health and my strength, and for the realization that every crisis - even the coronavirus crisis - eventually ends.

Here is what I reflected on during that first run:

In the last almost three months, I have written close to 200 articles about the novel coronavirus. Normally when I write I am just doing my job. But during that first run, I started to think about how things can change in an instant, and that I had been reporting the stories that will become our collective history, stories that we never expected.

United Hatzalah director Eli Beer has for decades traveled to the States to raise money for his organization. During his spring trip he became infected with COVID-19, spent nearly a month in a coronavirus coma and, as he said, “I was sure I was not waking up.” 

For the past four years, a team of scientists at The Galilee Research Institute (MIGAL) has been developing a vaccine against infectious bronchitis virus (IBV), which causes a bronchial disease affecting poultry. The effectiveness of the vaccine has been proven in preclinical trials carried out at the Veterinary Institute. Now, the company says, it is at the end stages of developing a vaccine for COVID-19 in humans.

“Let’s call it pure luck,” said Dr. Chen Katz, MIGAL’s biotechnology group leader. “We decided to choose coronavirus as a model for our system just as a proof of concept for our technology.” 

Now everyone has heard of MIGAL.

About 230 Israelis have died from coronavirus. It is a small number when compared internationally, but because of their deaths, I am sure so many lives have been forever changed. Death is a very jolting reminder about what really matters in this life. 

The world is not only made up of humans

The coronavirus reminded us that while we humans think we run the world, the world belongs to all of God’s creatures. Wild boars moved into Haifa, jackals into Tel Aviv and wolves into Arad. Many articles have demonstrated how worldwide lockdowns have allowed the Earth to start healing. 

It is hard for us to make sense of the constant stream of dire news reports. We are worried about our loved ones getting sick, our finances and our children’s education (or lack thereof). But somehow we have kept going. 

We found ways to make music from the madness, to hold our Seders on porches, come together to clap for our healthcare heroes and share creative methods for keeping our kids occupied. We toasted each other and cried together over Zoom. I even attended my mother-in-law’s funeral virtually. 

Humans have the unique capability to be resilient even in the face of what seems insurmountable, and I have faith that as we emerge from coronavirus, we will be even stronger as a Jewish people, an Israeli society, and a global community than we were before.

On Monday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the country that there were three ingredients to Israel’s success against COVID. The first was that we acted fast to close our border and isolate our sick people.

A study released in March showed that if China had started testing and quarantining even one week earlier, it could have reduced the number of patients by as much as 66%. Two weeks could have meant 86% and three weeks could have cut the number of cases by 95%.

It is so easy to say, “I will do it tomorrow.” If we learn anything from coronavirus, it is to seize the moment.

We acted. But now is when we need to act again. Many experts believe there will be a second wave of the virus. For years, Israel neglected its health system. We have too few hospital beds, not enough trained nurses, and we suffer from unclean practices that spread infectious diseases that ultimately kill us. The government must invest today in increasing the number of health professionals and intensive care unit beds so we will be even stronger for the next round or any future pandemic.

The second ingredient of our success was the healthcare workers, and the third, according to Netanyahu, was the obedience and diligence of the Israeli people, who together followed the Health Ministry’s guidelines and stayed home. 

Israelis are known for their chutzpah. We are the Start-Up Nation because we “start up.” We do not follow rules because we think we know better. But in the end, the Jewish people are also a  people of faith and humanity. 

When we understood the gravity of what was at stake - human lives - we united against all odds. 

Running uphill on my final stretch back home that first Tuesday, my legs started to hurt. It had been a while since I pushed myself so hard. However, I smiled the whole way back. That is because running uphill is a metaphor for life in the shadow of corona. It is hard but we will make it and we will be stronger because of it.