Israel's death toll from coronavirus now stands at 1,507, the Health Ministry said Tuesday morning, while the number of coronavirus patients in serious condition dropped from 772 to 755 and the number of patients on ventilators dropped from 209 to 207.
There are currently 65,025 active carriers of the virus in Israel after 1,121 new cases of coronavirus were detected in the previous 24 hours, 143 of them since midnight.
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The transfer of a coronavirus patient to a new ward at Rambam Healthcare Campus in Haifa
(Photo: Ido Erez)
Health authorities conducted 8,105 coronavirus tests on Monday, an exceptionally low figure due to Yom Kippur, meaning 13.8% of all tests yielded a positive result - a high level of morbidity but in line with the infection rate of recent days.
Since the onset of the pandemic in Israel, 233,554 people have tested positive for the pathogen. Of that number, at least 167,000 people have recovered from the disease.
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Coronavirus checkpoint near Be'er Sheva during Yom Kippur lockdown
(Photo: Herzl Yossef)
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Tuesday morning that individuals and businesses should expect the country's current coronavirus lockdown to be extended past its current expiration date of October 10.
Speaking to Israeli public broadcaster KAN, Edelstein made it clear that Israel's second national lockdown, said to be much more prohibitive than the first in March and April, would be lifted gradually over an extended period of time.
“The lockdown will not be lifted - unequivocally. There is no scenario in which we will lift all restrictions in 10 days and say, ‘everything is over, everything is fine,”' Edelstein told the Hebrew-language outlet.