I tested positive.
It happened on the first of the month of Elul. It’s a day filled with excitement in the ultra-Orthodox society, as children begin a new year in their educational frameworks and we, the parents, get to have some time for ourselves. The first free moment I had, I asked myself how I was feeling. And the trust was that I didn’t feel too well.
I picked up the phone to the doctor, received a referral for a test and tested positive for COVID-19. Thoughts began swirling around my head: how did this happen? Who did I meet? Who did I infect? How many people will have to quarantine because of me? How will the 11 of us quarantine within four walls? Do we even have enough food? (The answer by the way is no. Quarantined children at home are insatiable).
The whole family began quarantining together and everyone was tested. Some had even managed to be infected. Then the phone rang. “Go to a hotel; it’ll reduce the infection,” they said.
I had a lot of questions: What is this hotel? What does it look like? Can I take my daughters with me, even if they’re not infected? How will I do laundry? Is there enough food there? There were almost no answers. They just told me that they’d be by to pick me up in half-an-hour.
I remember feeling uncertain on the minibus ride to the hotel. Once I got there, I met many other families feeling the same distress and uncertainty – in the entrance, registration, hallways and in between the rooms.
When we got home, my phone was filled with phone numbers of the people I met. We started a WhatsApp group “COVID-19 Hotels” and people started adding more and more people themselves. Groups of hotel “graduates”, patients on their way there, and also those who are currently at the hotels also opened.
Tips, recommendations and questions – it all flowed in the group. We even wrote the “COVID-19 Guide for the Beginner”.
But then I realized that something else had happened here: we had created a special group of COVID-19 patients who had recovered, and maybe something else could be done. So I opened a new WhatsApp group called: “Recovered COVID-19 Patients Volunteer.” I asked them if they’d like to volunteer and whether they’d like to use their advantage for good.
When a lot of people showed interest, I went to hospitals. I asked them if we could help them at all – we, the recovered COVID-19 patients. When someone is hospitalized in the COVID-19 ward, family and friends can’t visit him or her, and the loneliness only adds to the fear of the disease. Support is a must.
It isn’t easy to create a group of volunteers in the hospital, and it usually requires a lot of bureaucracy. But because of the period and the opportunity, we were able to move things along quicker. And just like that, 263 volunteers arrived (in full protection) or are waiting to be sent to hospitals.
In one of my conversations with the hospitals, I spoke with Network member Sefi Mendlovic, VP of Sha’are Zedek. “Do you need volunteers who have recovered from COVID-19?” I asked. “Yes, and we already have a lot of ultra-Orthodox volunteers. If, for example, we had more volunteers from the Arab society who could speak to those who are hospitalized in Arabic, it’d be a great help. “
I picked up the phone and called MAOZ. Within a few hours, we created a questionnaire looking for Arab patients who had recovered from COVID-19. The Arab society then also began moving things along on their own and we have quite a few Arab volunteers.
In this difficult time, this is what I think makes all the difference. Right now, when everyone is busy with earning a living and maintaining one’s strength and health, we can mobilize forces from within.
We’ll get through COVID-19, and I really think it’s going to be thanks to working together.