Israel is unlikely to take further steps to lift the restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus in the immediate future, a senior Health Ministry official said on Sunday.
Speaking at a press conference, Sharon Alroy-Preis, who heads the ministry's Public Health Services department, warned that as the government continued to ease restrictions, the transmission of the virus was on the rise, albeit below the level registered before the nationwide lockdown was implemented in mid-September.
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For Israel to enter the next stage in rolling back the restrictions, the number of new daily cases must drop below 500, she said.
The warning came as street shops reopened across Israel after some two months of closure. Alroy-Preis warned that it would be at least a week before officials would be able to assess the full impact of the reopening.
On Saturday, Israel saw 208 new infections, a low figure the result of scaled-back testing carried out over the weekend.
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There are currently 8,219 people infected with the coronavirus in Israel, 144 of whom are on ventilators. While a total of 319,515 people have contracted the virus, some 308,622 have recovered thus far. Israel has recorded 2,674 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
