We have already learned, in the most painful way possible, what happens when a threat is dismissed in its early stages. During COVID-19, many in our kehilla ignored the guidelines given to us by the experts, and we paid for it in blood. Everyone knows someone who was niftar during that terrible time. And the question that remains from the pandemic is: Will we be willing to prevent the next one?

Today, that question is no longer theoretical. A rare, deadly virus called hantavirus is now spreading globally, including in the U.S. and Israel. And yet, we are seeing once again the same unwillingness to act, the same cowardly inability to “pull the trigger” on what has to be done.

You might be thinking that hantavirus is not COVID. You’d be right. Hantavirus is far, far worse than COVID. Certain forms of hantavirus carry mortality rates approaching 30 to 40 percent—far higher than anything we saw during the pandemic. While the World Health Organization currently insists the broader public risk is “low,” that kind of reassurance is exactly what we heard before the last crisis spiraled out of control. The question is not what the situation looks like today. The question is what it will look like if we wait.

Where are our leaders? Our elected officials are silent, afraid of backlash. But more troubling is the silence within our own kehilla. Where are the rabbonim and askanim demanding immediate action? Where is the urgency that pikuach nefesh demands? Leadership is not about waiting until action is easy. It is about acting when it is necessary.

We cannot afford to wait for official mandates. By the time those come, the opportunity to prevent tragedies may already be gone. The only responsible course of action is immediate, voluntary lockdown: closing our shuls and schools, limiting contact, wearing masks in all shared spaces, and practicing strict social distancing now, before we are forced into it later under worse circumstances.

My family is not waiting. We have already prepared. We have stocked food, water, and masks. Our storage area is filled with toilet paper. I have begun teaching my school-age children how to use hotlines for when schools go remote. We are ready to go into lockdown immediately. The question is whether the rest of our kehilla is prepared to do what is necessary, or whether we will once again hesitate until we are counting losses we could have prevented.

How many did we lose last time? How many more are we willing to sacrifice now, simply to avoid inconvenience? Those are not rhetorical questions. They are decisions. And if we do not make them ourselves, reality will make them for us.

Signed,

Fraidy Katz

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