The Ministry of Health said Sunday afternoon that 1,246 new coronavirus cases have been diagnosed out of about 28,000 tests performed since midnight, putting Israel’s infection rate at 4.5% – the highest number of such in days .
Ministry data show that 712 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized in poor condition, 225 of whom were ventilated.
Out of 37,432 active coronavirus carriers nationwide, Jerusalem had the highest number of active cases with 5,137 patients currently fighting the virus. The capital is then followed by Tel Aviv-Jaffa who has listed 1,785 active coronavirus patients, Netanya with 1,297, Be’er Sheva with 1,212 and Ashkelon with 1,108 active cases.
The national COVID-19 death toll reached 5,889 deaths after eight Israelis died of coronavirus-related complications on Sunday alone and 116 Israelis died of coronavirus-related complications since the beginning of March.
More than 12,000 Israelis received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Sunday and 31,500 people have received a second-dose boost. Since the launch of the world’s best vaccine campaign, Israel has already injected 4,941,633 citizens with the first dose of the vaccine and 3,748,243 of them have also received the second injection.
To date, 53.14% of the population of Israel has been vaccinated against coronavirus once, and 40.31% have been vaccinated twice.
Ash told Ynet that the highly proposed Israeli vaccination campaign, which includes half of the country’s population against COVID-19, could protect hospitals from rising in serious cases.
However, he warned, a slight increase in morbidity was expected after Israel took the final steps to reopen its economy on Sunday morning, despite some restrictions on population sizes and access to establishments.
“This is not over. We need to continue to be careful, use masks and maintain a social pace,” Ash said. “We have a way to go until the pandemic is behind us,” he said.
“We need to keep an eye on the numbers and as long as the increase in cases is under control and there is no increase in bad cases, we will be able to keep the economy open,” he said. to the fact that serious cases in hospitals were falling.