The coronavirus morbidity decreased in Israel with 43,852 new cases reported by the Health Ministry on Tuesday morning. Altogether, 181,947 Israelis were screened for the virus in the past 24 hours, which puts the infection rate at 24.1%.
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The reproduction rate, which refers to the number of people each confirmed carrier infects, also decreased and now stands at 0.82. A value below 1 means that the outbreak is subsiding.
There are 318,291 active cases in the country with 2,687 patients hospitalized. Of those, 1,161 are in serious condition – 355 are critically ill, 288 are on ventilators and 21 are connected to ECMO machines.
Thus far, 673,047 Israelis have been vaccinated with four shots, 4,450,249 with three, 6,106,814 with two, and 6,693,602 have received one shot.
Israel has reported 3,262,672 COVID cases, including 9,226 deaths, since the outbreak of the pandemic in March 2020.
Meanwhile, the government's decision to roll back on the so-called "green pass" vaccina certificated came into force at midnight on Sunday, as part of a further easing of restrictions in the fight against COVID amid a slowing down of the Omicron outbreak.
Israelis will no longer need to present their digital pass at the entrance to restaurants, cinemas, sports halls, and hotels. However, they will still be required to do so before entering sites where the risk of infection is higher, such as performance halls and dance clubs.
At the same time, gatherings will no longer be limited to a specific number of people.
Capacity limits at stores and social distancing at restaurants as part of the "purple pass" requirements are also removed as part of the new measures.
The new rules will remain in effect until March 1.
"Because Omicron also infects the vaccinated, the [green] pass has lost effectiveness in most places and we decided to reduce its use to only high-risk places. It is part of the trend of living with the virus," Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash told Army Radio.
Nevertheless, while overall COVID cases are declining, the number of serious cases remains high, a trend that experts predicted as serious cases usually lag by a few weeks.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
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