{"id":338,"date":"2021-08-15T23:04:04","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T23:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/?p=338"},"modified":"2021-08-17T09:03:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T09:03:06","slug":"going-to-israel-during-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/08\/15\/going-to-israel-during-a-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Going to Israel during a Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You would not know it, but I am an Israeli-American and go back once in a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Opinion trip to Israel in the Covid 19 era   HD 1080p\" width=\"590\" height=\"332\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MHUlOOmtBGA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>An audio\/video version. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>It became a crazy situation very quickly. A COVID-19 test is required less than 72 hours before the flight. I had a plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My first plan was to go to Walgreens. They have lots of stores and a plentiful supply of test kits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a great plan. The flight leaves at 3:20 PM on Sunday I plan on being at the Walgreens at 4 PM Thursday to have the maximum time to get my test results back..<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem is the flight leaves on Sunday and turnaround times are not guaranteed on the weekends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I read the disclaimer.. Results not guaranteed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That buzzing sound you just heard was they Walgreens being left off the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Time for a new plan..<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next I tried the airline website. I figured they want me to fly for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That disclaimer comes up again. It reads like it\u2019s written by a lawyer. I guess the lawyers get rich in a pandemic just like any other situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I get the light bulb over my head moment. I will use my health insurance plan. I verified that the results would be sent to the lab at the health plan hospital at 6 pm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can pressure the health plan provide the results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I take the test and it was far less of a problem than I thought it would be. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Test taken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next morning I wonder how I am going to get the results in the airline app. Print it off the health plan web site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This actually works after I invested an hour finding out if the results are going to be uploaded to the website. <br><br>Yay! I find out that the results would be probably a available by 1 pm. It\u2019s already 12:46 pm Central. I probably will find out soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A few minutes after 1 pm I log into the health plan and my results are there.  <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I print them. Twice! Yay! the printer works!<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I photographed and uploaded to the airline app travel readiness site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I wonder how long it will be before it gets approved. What is this Ministry of Health form I need to fill out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uh oh. It must be less than 24 hours before the flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nothing to obsess about. Right? I tried the site. Error 404. Not found. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This does not bode well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe they will fix it? Yeah right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Due to cultural issues most of the people in the Israeli government tasked to write English are if I am being charitable are not native speakers. If I am truthful many of these people are not able to communicate in written English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am on alert and the first moment I have, I jump on the site .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Error code 404.. I tried a hundred times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I tried to guess common misspellings and get nowhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I call the airline and report the issue. I have a lovey conversation with a lovely airline employee from Salt Lake City. We talked for some time. She is a good listener.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conversation calms me but accomplished nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The next morning I try the form. 404.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>404<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>404.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The form has a phone number on it. I asked my wife to call the Ministry. You might as well tried calling the Ministry of magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My wife is hung up on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Numerous times .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When she reached a person, she was advised to try harder. Be frequent. Persevere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2 hours before the flight. I try uploading the COVID test results. Bzzzzzz! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two hours before the flight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Panic sets in. The form comes up. I started filling it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is my flight number? Can I view it with a task switch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Buzzzzzzz! Thank You for playing try again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s now 20 minutes before I need to go to the airport and I\u2019m in a state of panic in desperation.I try again<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This time I remembered everything.  I memorize my ZIP Code for Arad and my flight number. After about 10 tries to get in the form. I start filling it out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I get to the city field to pick my quarantine city upon arrival. I see the city names are in caps so I. press caps lock. I type A for ARAD. No not a single key works. I scroll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I try to think of other ways to spell Arad in English and come up with nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I <span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">get nothing ,no results.  I need to leave for my flight and  I still don\u2019t have a form filled out. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the point of desperation I said well let\u2019s try lowercase letters because there are no capital letters in Hebrew.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So with lowercase letters the search works. I print the document I upload it to United airlines. Life is good. It only took about 12 hours of effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I laugh now but I was ready to give up on the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was so stressed out I had lay on  the floor and breathe deeply in order to let my blood pressure below 400<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome to international travel Israeli style in the era of COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deep breath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now all I have to do is fly for 14 hours, take another Covid test and spend a week at home in quarantine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You would not know it, but I am an Israeli-American and go back once in a while. It became a crazy situation very quickly. A COVID-19 test is required less than 72 hours before the flight. I had a plan. My first plan was to go to Walgreens. They have <span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span> <span class=\"more-link-wrap\"><a href=\"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2021\/08\/15\/going-to-israel-during-a-pandemic\/\" class=\"more-link\"><span>Read more &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevenprotter.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}