Ten months after the first coronavirus case was diagnosed in Israel, the launch of the mass vaccination campaign marks the beginning of the pandemic's end.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
There is an overall impression that the pandemic is behind us and life can return to normal: that we can go back to shaking hands, giving pats on the back, and hugging; that we can go back to movie theaters and soccer fields, restaurants and cafés; that schools and universities can resume operations; that planes and buses can run as they used to, and that we can go back to the malls and the markets, and hold birthdays and parties.
There's a feeling that we can pick up right where life left off in February. That the panic over the outbreak of a global pandemic – rushing supermarkets for food staples and toilet paper and scouring stores for alcogel and surgical gloves – can be left to the history books. That the fear sparked by everyday actions like simply pushing an elevator button can fade away, and that we are about to wake up and find out that all of this was just a bad dream.
But we cannot allow that to happen. Because despite the heavy price paid by the thousands of victims of this wretched disease, the hundreds of thousands of patients, and the hundreds of thousands of those rendered jobless, Israel as a country has learned something that we cannot afford to forget. We cannot ignore the fact that in just a few months, the coronavirus has been able to push through processes that otherwise could have taken years to emerge and mature.
This is why we cannot go back. No one wants to stand in line for an hour at the bank because now we can schedule an appointment, and the same goes for the post office and for some stores. Israelis living in the periphery can be treated by a senior doctor from central Israel via a video call, which increases equality and reduces social gaps.
The educational system has also shown a remarkable ability to adapt. Why squeeze 35 students into a classroom when technology and resourcefulness allow us to split a class into groups and use remote learning?
If teachers managed to teach my daughter, who is in the first grade, to read and write via Zoom, then the sky is the limit. The Education Ministry's pilot program may have faltered, but that is because it was rushed through. The conclusions, however, together with the tools that have now been perfected, should become an integral part of the educational system immediately.
Not to mention that it is now possible to get an entire university degree without stepping into a single auditorium not just at the Open University, thus making academia accessible to everyone, regardless of where they live.
Employers have learned that workers can work from home without it undermining productivity – on the contrary. Meetings can be held on Zoom and many are even more organized and efficient. An employee who doesn't get stuck in traffic for 90 minutes every morning is obviously less irritated and more productive – and that's before we said anything about reducing road congestion and air pollution.
We have learned these lessons in a very hard way, but we have advanced decades in under one year. We cannot accord to go back.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
