Israel on Sunday reported just over 10,000 new daily coronavirus cases diagnosed the previous day, the lowest the figure has been in weeks.
The Health Ministry said 10,354 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, and after 50,244 tests had been conducted, the infection rate now stands at 20.6%.
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COVID departments across Israeli hospitals
(Photo: Yoav Dodkovitz, Yariv Katz- Hadassah Ein Karem)
The tally represents a 45% decrease from the same numbers reported two weeks ago when 240,756 people were diagnosed for the virus.
The virus' reproduction number has remained stable throughout the last three days, standing at 0.67 and signaling the weakening of the pandemic.
The Health Ministry said that 1,848 Israelis are currently hospitalized for complications related to the virus. At least 832 of them are in severe condition, an increase of 10 patients from the number reported Saturday, of whom 265 are ventilated. The tally represents the the lowest number of hospitalizations per day, with only 75 hospitalized on Saturday - lowest since January.
The Health Ministry did not update the tally of latest coronavirus-related deaths, which as of Saturday stands at 9,841.
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Medical staff chat inside the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) ward at Beilinson hospital in Petah Tikva, Israel August 18, 2021
(Photo: Reuters)
'Red areas' with high coronavirus infection rates continue to decrease, and as of Sunday morning, there are six local authorities which are classified as green: Modi'in Ilit, Beitar Ilit, Om Batin, Shevet Sayid, and Tifrach. Bnei Brak is close to being green, but still defined as yellow, as is Tamra, Cabul, and Jisr a-Zarqa.
Meanwhile, the number of active cases is continuing to drop, standing at 138,824. The Health Ministry data shows that there are 7,600 active cases in Jerusalem, 7,589 in Tel Aviv, 4,788 in Haifa, 4,733 in Be'er Sheva, 4,399 in Petah Tivka, 3,682 in Rishon LeZion, 3,439 in Netanya, 3,152 in Ashkelon, 2,919 in Ashdod, 2,600 in Holon, 2,594 in Ramat Gan, 2,203 in Rehovot, and 2,049 in Kfar Sabah.
In an interview with Ynet on Sunday, Prof. Cyrille Cohen, immunology specialist from Bar Ilan University, said that Israel seems to be moving towards the end of the Omicron wave. "I think that we've learned that COVID is here to stay, the question is what form it will take. The Omicron variant is a bit of a wonder because it's very different from what we knew from the Alpha and Delta variants," he added. "But this isn't to say there isn't another variant cooking up somewhere."
Prof. Cohen also acknowledged the BA.2 strain, an offshoot of Omicron, has caused some anxiety in Israel. "There was a study in Japan this weekend, which hasn't gone through official critical procedures, which found that maybe this variant leads to a more severe illness.
"However, the experiment was on organs and not humans. In most cases, there aren't recurring infections from this variant."