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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
The pandemic is hitting records in Israel, but the vaccination rates too. Not far from our apartment, in Rabin square, there is a huge vaccination tent, one of many vaccination centers across Tel Aviv. All of our relatives and friends that are over 60, including all of our 6 (yes!) grandparents, received the vaccine shots, as well as some of our younger friends (doctors, social workers, teachers). But the vaccination festival will slow down in the next few weeks, since new supply is delaying. Actually the big tent in the square is no longer operating (the picture was taken yesterday) since they ran out of vaccines. As long as the vaccination operation went on, we were hoping to race our way out of this nightmare with an amok run. Now we are back to the gloomy days of the long passive wait: schools will close as of Friday, and younger people (younger than 60) will be vaccinated only in February. The passivity of the lockdown is in my eyes one of its most difficult aspects, the fact that the best fight is to avoid doing. To pause. The vaccines were such a success in Israel not only because it was what it was, but also because people could finally DO SOMETHING in order to get themselves and others out of it.
February 20, 2021
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Many of us have experienced restrictions on movement and social contact during the pandemic. Talk about any restrictions that have especially affected you.
I kind of touched on this in my last entry but I'll elaborate a little more. I started dating a woman about 7 weeks ago and just before we were landed in to Level 5 again (severe lockdown), I asked her to be my girlfriend. At the time, level 5 was a possibility but not a certainty. Anyway even if it was a certainty, I don't think it would have changed my actions, she is a wonderful person. But it has been hard. We are still getting to know each other and want to spend time together. But at the moment, all restaurants and cafes are closed. Cinemas and museums are closed. No household visits, indoor or outdoor are allowed. And its winter!! In rainy Ireland!! So we picnic in the cold, we walk in the cold, we go to the supermarket together in the hopefully not cold and we get by. But it's hard and there is a great sense of longing for both of us to just do normal things. I dream of the day I will hold her hand across a restaurant table or cuddle in close as we watch a movie on a couch. I suppose it will be ever more the sweeter once it happens.
November 20, 2020