Magen David Adom (MDA) is Israel’s national emergency response team for medical and natural disasters. Made up mainly of volunteers, MDA receives most of its funding from donations from organizations ad individuals from all over the world. 

In today’s current climate, MDA is working overtime, responding to tens of thousands of calls a day from citizens worried they have become infected by COVID-19, compared to the usual 6,000 calls they receive on a daily basis, with over 350 MDA staff or volunteers answering said calls. If the call is a normal medical emergency, the first dispatcher handles the case as normal, and sends the information out to necessary responders. However, if the call is COVID-19 related, it is transferred over to a specific set of dispatchers, highly trained to recognize symptoms within 30 seconds. 

Being Israel’s leading emergency response team, the information provided by MDA is the information the entire country adheres to – meaning that while we in the US may get different, and sometimes conflicting, responses and pieces of advice, Israel’s information and policies all come from the same place. In addition to advising citizens on how to prevent the spread, MDA is also responsible for the testing of the virus. They are training hundreds, if not thousands, of new people to test and treat the virus, including IDF reservists who worked in the medical field, medical school students, or just the average citizen looking to help. With all these people trained to administer the COVID-19 test, they are averaging about 2,000 tests per day. As of Sunday, March 15th, there were more than 400 cases in the country.

To hear how MDA is responding to COVID-19, watch this video https://vimeo.com/398363543.

For more information about how to stay healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic, go to https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html