Israel's COVID-19 outbreak is contracting at its fastest rate in months, according to Health Ministry data published on Wednesday.
The country's coronavirus R-number — a measure that gauges how many new infections spurt on average from any single case — has dipped to 0.73, the lowest such figure recorded since May.
Any number over 1 indicates infections are on the rise while any number under 1 means morbidity is waning.
However, the R-number represents average coronavirus incidences over the course of several days and may see an uptick in coming days owing to the High Holidays break and the reopening of schools.
Meanwhile, health authorities reported that 2,208 Israelis have tested positive for coronavirus out of about 66,000 tests carried out since midnight, putting the country's infection rate at 3.4%.
The share of positive coronavirus diagnoses out of the total daily testing stood at under 5% for the sixth successive day, a long haul from the 8.4% positivity rate recorded at the current morbidity wave's peak in early September.
2 View gallery
Coronavirus ward at Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center
(Photo: Hadassah Medical Center)
Israeli hospitals were treating 1,350 COVID-19 patients, compared to 393 a month ago. Of those receiving treatment, 647 were in serious condition, among them 217 patients connected to ventilators
Since the onset of the pandemic in Israel, 7,732 Israelis succumbed to complications of COVID-19, twenty of them on Tuesday alone and another seven on Wednesday.