The highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread havoc across Israel. On Thursday, for the third day in a row, the Health Ministry reported more than 700 new coronavirus cases.
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As of Thursday morning, there were c5,372 active cases in the country, with 100 people hospitalized, 17 in critical condition and 16 on ventilators. Of the 56,075 Israelis that were screened for the virus in the past 24 hours, 765 (1.38%) tested positive, setting the current infection rate at 1.27.
Israel has reported 836,859 cases, including 6,443 deaths, since the outbreak of the pandemic last year.
The ministry has labeled one Israeli city as "red" over COVID morbidity. Six localities are "orange" and 30 have been ranked "yellow" on the ministry's "stoplight" system. Each designation carries different restrictions on public life, particularly public gatherings in closed spaces.
On Wednesday, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz appointed Dr. Salman Zarka, director-general of Ziv Medical Center in Safed, as the new coronavirus commissioner responsible for managing the epidemic in Israel. Zarka will replace current COVID chief, Professor Nachman Ash.
With a master's degree in Epidemiology and Public Health, Zarka has been running Ziv Medical Center for seven years and is also an associate professor at Bar-Ilan University and senior lecturer at Hebrew University.
A member of the Druze community, he set up and managed a military hospital on the Syrian border as part of a special humanitarian operation led by Israel.
On Tuesday, the ministry decided to shorten the required self-isolation period for returnees from abroad to one week alone.
"If returnees make sure to do a coronavirus test on the seventh day after return and self-isolate properly, then the decision will have been the right one," Dr. Ran Balicer, a member of the ministry's pandemic response team said in an interview with Kan radio.
The ministry also said it was working to set up rapid testing sites and transfer the responsibility of enforcing coronavirus regulations, including the indoor mask mandate, on the Public Security Ministry.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
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