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Israel saw over 9,000 new daily coronavirus cases after a record-breaking number of tests had been conducted by medical officials, the Health Ministry reported Thursday.
The Health Ministry said one in seven people tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday after 68,128 tests had been conducted, putting the contagion rate at 13.6%, a slight drop from the same figure a day earlier.
The number of patients in serious condition now stands at 854, of whom 206 are ventilated. The official death toll has gone up to 1,571.
Since the start of the outbreak, 248,133 were confirmed to have contracted the pathogen. The figure almost doubled over the past month, when only 116,882 virus carries had been confirmed by September 1.
There are 68,811 active patients, currently ill with the disease, in Israel.
At least 7,554 of them reside in Jerusalem, 4,985 in Bnei Brak, 3,155 in Ashdod, 2,311 in Tel Aviv, 2,139 in Modi'in Illit, 1,961 in Petah Tikva, 1,871 in Netanya, 1,534 in Be'er Sheva, 1,411 in Haifa, 1,403 in Rishon Lezion, 1,385 in Beit Shemesh, 1,362 in Holon, 1,296 in Elad 1,210 in Beitar Illit and 1,054 in Ashkelon.
Since the outbreak of the virus in the country, some 2.7% of Israelis became infected with the pathogen at some point (one out of every 37 people), ranking Israel fifth in the world - after Qatar, Bahrain, Aruba and French Guiana.