And then came the coronavirus outbreak.

Stringent instructions were issued, along with dire warnings meant to protect older people, who are most vulnerable to the virus. “Elderly persons must absolutely avoid leaving home or receiving guests,” the Health Ministry admonished. Minister of Defense Naftali Bennet declared: “The most important rule is to protect grandfather and grandmother. Find creative ways of hugging and loving them, from a distance!” A public-service announcement on the military radio station said: “Save Grandpa and Grandma. Don’t go to visit them.”

My family was divided. Most of us thought that Dad and his live-in partner should be totally isolated in their home. This led to a series of discussions, sometimes arguments, within the family. All of us had only Dad’s well-being in mind, but there were disagreements over the right way to ensure it.

The first people who had to stop coming to Dad’s house were the trainers and therapists, the ones whose daily contact with him had kept him alert and active. Attempts to continue his sessions over video chats didn’t work.

Then most of us thought we, too, should stop visiting him. The health authorities were already predicting that within days, hundreds of Israelis would be on respirators, most of them old people, and their number would soon be in the thousands, with only 1,500 such machines available. (Those predictions proved wrong.) One family member made a grim prediction about what would happen if Dad were infected with the virus: “It is reasonable to assume that he would have very low priority when they have to decide who to respirate and who dies.”

After three weeks, I persuaded the family to allow me a visit. I immediately saw that something was seriously wrong. Dad was drifting away, disconnecting from his surroundings. Should we call a doctor? Just letting a doctor in risked infection, and there was going to be a shortage of respirators. We called one anyway.

The doctor advised us to go immediately to the emergency room. My sisters, Dad’s partner and I had more arguments, with some saying that hospitals were the worst place to be. We called another doctor, who said the hospital seemed too dangerous. A third doctor told us to call her again in a couple of days.

Over the next few hours I watched Dad slipping away from us. That morning he had responded to questions in a weak voice, but at around 4 p.m. he was hardly opening his eyes, and at 6 not at all. He had become totally detached. His temperature was going up. I felt I was being ripped apart. What do I know? What do I understand about medicine? Perhaps his decline was only temporary, maybe he was having a bad day, as he’d had in the past. Or was it a worsening of his Alzheimer’s or a spread of the cancer? Under any other circumstances, we would have taken him to the E.R. immediately. But if he contracted the coronavirus at the hospital and died as a result, would I be able to look his partner and my sisters in the eye?