Friday morning we were supposed to come out of lockdown at 7 a.m. Now, frankly, this was a really dumb idea because people who are not religious would therefore be able to go party on Friday night and people who are religious would be able to meet up for Shabbos meals. We've been in lockdown 5 solid weeks. At this point, who cares if we're in until Sunday morning rather than Friday morning?
In the middle of the night, it was announced that, nope, we were staying in lockdown until Sunday. Then they reversed it. Then changed THAT again. I think the point was so that people would just throw up their hands and give up.
In the end, lockdown slooooowly started getting lifted on Sunday. So far, that means that roadblocks between cities have been lifted (the one on the main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem [that I drive to work] was so entrenched that there were permanent signs put up guiding buses and trucks to the right lane, passenger cars to the left and making sure everyone knew the middle lane was closed so the police could be set up there). Business that are one-on-one are now allowed to be open, so hooray for the hairstylist and eyebrow lady being open again. And restaurants can now have takeout as well as delivery. Man, that "delivery only" thing was a total drag: I finally live in a place with zillions of kosher restaurants, but with "delivery only" the lack of instant gratification was a real downer.
Schools will start a slow roll-out next week, but Penina's grade (12th) is not scheduled to return until the end of February and Ilana (9th) not until the second week of March. Where's that eye-roll emoji?? 🙄 This assumes that our city, currently "red" due to high numbers of Covid cases, turns at least orange, if not green. If it stays red, schools will stay closed. I might need that emoji again....
I went to the Kotel on Thursday after work in a huge rainstorm (thunder, lightning and hail! [fun fact: here a slushy/slurpee is called a barad (hail). You may never think of the 10 Plaques at Passover the same way again!]. Aside from that I had some very important people to daven for (please keep Erik--Eliyahu Refael ben Tzirel Tova--in your thoughts), I also knew that it was the end of my private time there. And, indeed, when I went Monday after work it was mobbed. Glad I had 5 weeks of being with tiny numbers of people there. If you'd like to see what it was like, here's a little video I took:
Meanwhile, the huge immunization campaign that Israel has rolled out is doing well, This week is the first with everyone over age 18 invited to get vaccinated (no health issues, etc required) and those aged 16-18 can be vaccinated with parental permission. This week also brought a new clinic in Tel Aviv to vaccinate those who aren't citizens, including those in the country illegally and foreign students [including pretty much every patient of mine]--hooray!
Currently over a third of the population has received their first vaccine and 1/4 of the population (over 2.2 million people!) has received both. Those who have had the vaccines are doing well fighting against the new variants going around: 85% of those over age 60 have been vaccinated, and this age group has seen a very sharp decrease in those who are becoming critically ill from Covid. 75% of all new Covid cases are in the less-than 40 age group, with over 40% in the less-than 19 years old age group ((from the Israel Covid-19 update Whatsapp group. PM me if you want the link to join). This is the pickle that Israel, especially, is in: the new variants target the younger age groups who have not been approved to get the vaccine, and Israel has a HUGE number of young people: almost 1/3 of the population here is 17 or younger. I guess we'll see how this plays out...
We're coming up on Rosh Chodesh Adar and it will be interesting to see what Adar and the holiday of Purim is like this year. Boy, last year feels like a really (REALLY) long time ago.
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