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I got sick, healed - and escaped from New York | Israel today

2020-04-02T21:27:27.952Z


United States


Corona continues to spread in the Big Apple • We wrote in the US June Hersh and his family battled the virus - and left town for a home in the mountains

Life can turn around in the moment, says the cliché. But in my life I didn't watch it, and I didn't even see it coming. When she knocked on the door of the house, it was too late to prepare. We've been in New York for ten years. Live peacefully in one of Brooklyn's pastoral neighborhoods, Fort Green. We came to the neighborhood almost by chance, good friends lived there, and decided to be close. Since we are here, you can see how our little neighborhood is growing into one of the most attractive destinations in the city, and we, my partner Hila and I, are growing with it. From a crazy little studio apartment of a young couple to a three-room apartment today, meters from the neighborhood park, equipped with two magical children, Spring and Nebo.

Corona in New York // Photo: Reuters

I can't remember when I first heard about the Corona. I do remember when she first glanced at my private life. It was the end of February. We have just returned from a visit to Israel, our seven-year-old daughter, Aviv, returned to her winter vacation activity. Upon returning to school, we received an email from the school. If you returned from abroad, it was written, we were informed. If you were in dangerous areas, management warned, we may ask you and your children to enter the 14-day isolation.

Spring School is one of the best things that has happened to us here. "Hannah Szenes," a progressive Jewish school in the heart of Brooklyn, has become our community for the past 3 years. With countless Israeli families, American Jews connected to the country, and Hebrew in focus, Sanchez becomes our home. But when that email came, it was all forgotten for a moment. The Israeli in me was just furious, and I realized that leaving school was a matter of time. I felt that it was unnecessary hysteria, just like the rolls of toilet paper that had already begun to disappear from the writer's shelves. "These Americans are crazy, they totally exaggerated," I told my partner. "I have no intention of cooperating, they also know that we were in Israel." Today, of course, I think completely differently. I wish everyone was as careful as Senesch.

On Friday the 13th (March) the school was officially discontinued. One family of good friends had already decided that she was going into voluntary isolation. We, however, decided to take advantage of the amazing day off and weather to hang out and spend time with friends. The city felt like yesterday. The restaurants were open, the park was blown up, friends came for dinner. Friday proper. No sign of the storm around the corner. But that night, a good friend, with whom we had spent hours earlier, called. "I think I fell into statistics," he said. "I went to bed for lunch, and got up with a high fever." The first piece of dominoes fell. Life, we realized, should now really change.

The isolation began. In the early days, except that we didn't leave the house, everything was pretty normal. We all felt good and no symptoms seemed on the horizon. The kids kind of lost it, but that was to be expected. All around us, business was deteriorating quite quickly. Sweeping directive for social isolation, closure of restaurants and bars, and instruction to stop schooling at all schools in the city - all during one weekend. The streets around us were getting empty. The remaining vehicle traffic was mainly ambulances. As the days passed, we heard less and less people from the window, more and more sirens. New York, a city break.

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On Monday I started to feel my throat. By Tuesday evening, the heat had already risen. At night, the boyfriend who got sick and was able to get tested, announced that the test was back positive. Corona. The next day all the other symptoms also appeared to me. Headaches, weakness, fatigue and especially crazy muscle pain. I was trying to figure out if I needed and could be tested. I looked at the New York City website. "Feeling not good?", It says. "Wait 3-4 days. If things get worse - contact your doctor. Otherwise, stay home." I called the New York State Corona Center anyway to see if I could get tested. Over 200 minutes of waiting, the automatic system announced. No more testing, I realized. 24 hours after my partner also started showing symptoms. The heat rose, the head ache, the fatigue overwhelming.

By this time the anxiety level was already quite high. We are both sick, not so bad for now, but you will know. And what will happen to the children? Will they stick? And who will handle them? Wow, as much as I wanted to be back in the country. Doesn't make sense, I know. Like who would take care of us if we were in isolation in the country? Still, New York's despair doesn't seem more comfortable in Corona's days, on the contrary. Especially when the families are all on the other side of the ocean.

And what about the parents? How hard it was to tell them that we were sick. The last thing I wanted to do was worry now about Mom and Dad, who are also approaching the age of the at-risk group, and are actually in isolation themselves. But of course we told, it's not something that is kept secret.

My father, a physician who ran an ICU for 30 years, responded with restraint. "85 percent of patients go through it without problems," he said, doubt trying to calm me, doubt trying to calm himself. My mother hid the anxiety less well. I soon realized that I had to call her now every morning. To tell how the night went, how are we, how the children were.

The days passed and the symptoms relaxed. Very slowly but surely - the situation of my partner and mine has improved. The heat was gone, the cough calmed down, the pain lessened, the fatigue was still there. My dad was right, thank goodness. With us, it felt kind of like the flu. Throughout the isolation period the children continued to have a fairly normal routine, only at home of course. They did not show any symptoms, but according to all the doctors we talked to, they probably contracted, just did not feel the disease. Hila and I were on shifts with them. Once I fall asleep, then Torah. We were able to order shopping every few days at Amazon. The messenger left things in the lobby, and I went down quickly, wearing gloves and a mask, to collect the groceries. What was missing from us was our neighborhood chabad zali.

After a couple of weeks in our house, we went outside. It was a strange feeling. On the one hand it is a huge relief to be outside. On the other hand, it was as if we had disappeared for two weeks, returning to a completely different, almost apocalyptic world. The park at the end of the street was almost empty of people, our cafe closed with a sign asking for them to donate and donate online. But the most surreal play came to me in the corner of the park adjacent to Brooklyn Hospital, the hospital where our oldest daughter was born. People queue along the street, wearing masks and trying to keep their distance. At first I didn't understand what the hustle was about. But the token fell very quickly - all these people trying to get tested.

In the parking lot next to the emergency room, a special tent was set up for corona testing. A step separates the park from the hospital, a step that suddenly looks like a whole world. The next day, the queue outside the hospital was no longer of subjects. A video footage of a passerby documented how a convoy of bodies was evacuated to huge trucks. "This is Brooklyn," the photographer said. Well, it's not just Brooklyn, it's my Brooklyn, 5 minutes walk from home.

Getting out of isolation made it clear to me that we had to get out of town. The depression in the streets, the atmosphere of the disabled and the feeling that things would get worse before it got better, were just too much for me, especially after the unbearable long isolation. At that moment, we began our private exodus campaign, the 2020 version. The kids will be able to run around, and going outside will not be a challenge that comes with gloves, masks and alcohol. We started packing, but not like packing for a regular vacation, it felt a bit more like a move. Clothes, toys, books and of course, all the food we could carry.

But packaging was not the most complex thing. On Saturday, 24 hours before we were due to leave, President Trump announced he was considering bringing New York into curfew. We wondered if we should cancel, we even looked at the option to go ahead and leave immediately. Eventually, the closure did not come to fruition, and the escape plan continued as a series. The last challenge was to get the rental car out. I started from the nearest airport, La Guardia. When I arrived there were only two vehicles in the parking lot, none of which matched the amount of equipment we wanted to bring. "Want to try JFK?" Ask at the rental company. I rushed to the second field, and there, fortunately, I managed to get by. The path to the Poconos was no less than a delusional one. The passage through Manhattan, which usually takes at least 20 minutes, took 5. This time the entire road took an hour and 45 minutes, unlike the usual two and a half hours.

And since Sunday we have been here. Living in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania, with a lake at the foot of the house and elk in the yard. The most different from New York can be described, the most different from our ordinary life, from the urbanity we are. How long will we be here? I have no idea yet. How long can we afford to stay out of the city we love so much and become the epidemic? This is also unclear. One thing I know - the future is in the fog. It's a good chance the schools won't be back for activities this year. My spouse, a real estate agent, has had to almost completely quit her business, and as only she knows she is struggling to close a few more deals even when the entire market is frozen. And I? My own, I became the object of my own coverage.

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2020-04-02

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