A Year Into Covid: Israel Leads the Way

By CUFI

Since the first cases of covid-19 began cropping up in Israel, the Jewish state has responded with strength, ingenuity, and compassion to its newest challenge. Leading the way for the world in dealing with the pandemic, Israel has blessed the nations with its innovative and effective solutions.

Early on, Israel fought the spread of covid-19 using advanced cell phone technology, utilizing geolocation data to determine people who might have been exposed by a previously asymptomatic person who later tested positive for covid-19. This technology was responsible for detecting a third of all coronavirus cases in Israel.

A year into Covid, let’s look back at some of the major strides Israel has made in protecting its citizens as well as blessing the world during this global pandemic:

From the early days of the pandemic, Israel provided aid to the Palestinians byloaning the Palestinian Authority money for testing kits and protective equipment and sending coronavirus aid to Gaza, even as the Palestinian leadership publicly accused Israel of attempting to thwart their efforts to combat the virus.

As soon as vaccines were available, Israel led the world in a groundbreaking vaccination campaign, inoculating 20% of its population in just three weeks. At this point, almost 90% of the country’s population over 50 have been vaccinated, including 84% of Arab-Israelis in the same age group. Meanwhile, vaccination of Palestinian workers is underway. This aid is unprecedented, as, under the Oslo Accords, it is the strictly the Palestinian Authority’s responsibility to provide healthcare for the people in territories under their control, not Israel’s.

Nonetheless, even as terrorist groups in Gaza continued to launch rockets into Israel and online covid-related anti-Semitism skyrocketed, Israel has extended a hand of compassion to her Palestinian neighbors during the pandemic, as well as all her citizens, regardless of their race or nationality.

In December 2020, one Israel-based humanitarian aid organization, SmartAid, launched an initiative called “Millions of Masks for Children,” the goal of which is to provide face masks for children in the care of childcare organizations in all 50 states. The same month, a team of doctors from Israel’s Sheba Medical Center was dispatched to Italy to help a hospital facing a significant covid-19 outbreak. Additionally, in August 2020, an Israeli company called CoVelocity partnered with a Guatemalan non-profit, Fundesa, to provide over 33,000 covid-19 tests to Guatemala.

Israel continues to fulfill its role as a light unto the nations by leading the world with its efficient vaccination program and providing humanitarian aid to other countries in need during the pandemic. May God, who is faithful to His promises, continue to bless Israel and the Jewish people so they can be a blessing to the nations (Genesis 12:2).