The Health Ministry brings glad tidings again: Of the 81,828 tests it administered on Thursday, 7,099 came back positive, marking it as yet another day with a decrease in the number of new cases. The infection rate stands at 8.9%.
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As of Friday morning, there were 82,002 active or symptomatic coronavirus cases in the country. A total of 1,847 Israelis are hospitalized; 328 of them are on ventilators.
Israel has reported 585,746 COVID cases and 4,263 deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic in mid-March.
In the meantime, the vaccination campaign continues at full speed. Health Minister Yuli Edelstein announced Friday morning that "We broke the record for the most people vaccinated within one day – 224,000 Israelis were vaccinated yesterday [Thursday.]"
So far, 2,441,379 Israelis have been inoculated, which constitutes 27.47% of the population. Some 850,811 people have received the second dose of the vaccine as well, i.e., 9.57% of the population.
Coronavirus chief Professor Nachman Ash told Channel12 that since the morbidity rate seems to be showing signs of a decrease, they will not be requesting the government to extend the lockdown beyond the 10 days that the Knesset had already approved.
He explained that although the number of new daily cases and critical patients was still high, recent data does indicate that the infection rate was finally coming down.
"The data is encouraging; for several days we've observed a curb in the morbidity, even a decrease. We hope that the trend will continue and that there will be no need to extend the lockdown," Ash said.
As for the high number of patients in serious and critical condition, Ash said that the crowding was overwhelming the healthcare system and that the number of these patients had to be brought down. "That is why we asked to extend the lockdown by ten days," he explained.
The chief also stressed the importance of inoculating Israelis over the age of 60 and explained that despite lowering the eligibility age to 40, they continue to work together with health maintenance organizations to reach out to those over 60 and make sure they get inoculated.
He added that he wasn't sure that opening cultural venus in two weeks was plausible, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Thursday.
"I am happy that we are on our way to opening cultural events. We will do so in a responsible and controlled manner," Netanyahu said.
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