The dead from the virus have no names and no faces - and the charlatans and conspiracy theorists take advantage of this • If the news had opened with the stories of the victims, everything would have changed • Opinion
Two weeks ago, we published in "Israel Today" the story of Yochai Edri, a 37-year-old healthy Israeli who fell ill in Corona and found himself within a few days hospitalized in a human condition connected to a resuscitation device as he walked between him and death.
Photo: Magen Israel spokeswoman
A few days later, we published a post written by Prof. Sharon Einav, director of the surgical intensive care unit at Shaare Zedek Hospital, with a difficult description of the burden on the Israeli health system in the face of the crowds of corona patients knocking on its doors.
The two publications were watched by many thousands of surfers, which proves that there is a desire to understand the danger of the disease to both the sick person and the general health system in the State of Israel.
But even though the calf wants to suckle it is not certain that there is a cow that will suckle it.
One of the claims made by Corona deniers is that it is a "public relations flu."
But it seems that the actual situation is reversed.
If Corona had the publicity it deserved, perhaps we would all better understand the danger and there would be no need for the authorities to beg that we keep the restrictions.
We might not have seen an insane number of tens of thousands (according to the Home Front Command) violating the isolation in which they are supposed to stay.
Try for a moment to recall the not-so-distant days of Operation Eitan or the Second Lebanon War.
Each evening the main edition would open with an update on the number of the fallen, their name, picture and place of residence.
Later in the edition were articles from a number of funerals covered by the reporters.
The price of war was served to us every evening, like a clock.
Try to imagine a situation in which for the past six months, Yonit Levy opens the edition every evening with a presentation of the data of those who perished from the plague.
With the presentation of their personal story, with a few words from the painful family members, with documentation of limited funerals due to the constraints of the fight against the virus.
Imagine that every morning the pictures of the victims and their personal stories would appear in the front pages of the newspapers.
And it's not just about the dead.
Some patients in a critical condition may recover, but will carry for the rest of their lives the consequences of the disease that connected them to the ventilators.
In order to understand the depth of the problem, one needs to look at the dramatic difference between the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health and the largest public relations ministry in the country - the IDF spokesman.
The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health routinely counts a limited number of employees, as in any government ministry, who are entrusted with issuing communications to the media concerning their field.
Their work is quite relaxed and there is no need for an increased array.
On the other hand, the IDF Spokesman is made up of units and sub-units, each with a defined role. At any given moment, hundreds of soldiers serve regularly, permanently and in reserve.
Every media person knows the orderly conduct of the IDF when a soldier is killed. After the initial report of the incident, there will be an orderly announcement by the IDF Spokesman with the details of the space, the circumstances of his fall, age, rank, place of residence, photo and funeral details.
Even later, the IDF Spokesman will accompany the family in all dealings with the media.
A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health is not accustomed to treating deaths from epidemics in the same way, and does not have the manpower to respond to the situation we have now reached, where there are about 20 dead every day.
It is time for the Ministry of Health to recruit a large and leading public relations office that will know how to convey to the public the message that this is not the flu, that it can maneuver the dry numbers of the dead and seriously ill, that it will tell us their story and their family.
The purpose of such publicity is not to oppress the people but to infuse the message that we are in a real state of emergency.
Perhaps as we look night after night at the consequences of our actions, we will uphold the rules and guidelines designed to save the lives of us all.
