Coronavirus in Israel

One Israeli was confirmed to have contracted coronavirus while on a Diamond Princess Japanese cruise. The group of Israelis who were on the cruise were welcomed back to Israel on a charter plane that arrived in a remote area of Ben Gurion airport. They were immediately brought to Sheba Medical Center where they will spend the next 14 days in quarantine.  As of today, there are now seven confirmed cases of the coronavirus within Israel.

As I travel to speak in churches, I always expect questions about the Bible or political questions about Israel, but recently people have been coming up to me and asking, “is Israel prepared for coronavirus?” And I didn’t have an answer for them until recently when I read an article about the fact that Israel had its first reported coronavirus case. The patient from the cruise ship is being treated at Sheba Medical Center, which is ranked the 10th best hospital in the world.  So, yes, they are prepared. They’re going to actually initiate Israeli technology to monitor the virus remotely through telemedicine. Patients can provide certain vitals to doctors without having to have person to person interaction. So while some Israelis have actually been pretty critical of the government not being prepared for coronavirus, Sheba Medical Center is definitely up for the task.

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