New infections in Israel continue to fall dramatically as the country's second lockdown is set to end Tuesday at midnight. The coronavirus cabinet will meet tomorrow to discuss what relaxations to introduce, if any.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes a cautious approach and if deciding himself would likely extend the full lockdown. But Minister of Finance Israel Katz and Minister of Defense Benny Gantz's Blue & White party are eager to get the private sector in offices that do not receive the public back to work. In tandem they would like kindergarten's and first second grades at schools to reopen but that is unlikely to happen until at least next Sunday. Senior Ministry of Health officials have consented to the lifting of some curbs but would like to keep high infection cities under full lockdown.
1,618 Israelis tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday down from 2,907 on Sunday of last week and a peak of 9,015 the week before that. 22,777 tests were conducted yesterday with a less than 8% positive rate. At the start of the month nearly 60,000 tests were conducted daily with a nearly 15% positive rate.
The number of seriously ill patients in hospital has fallen to 842 from a peak of nearly 900 last week and the number of patients of respirators has fallen to 242. The number of fatalities has risen to 2,001 with 429 fatalities since the start of the month after 599 people died from Covid-19 in September. There is a lag between the fall in new cases in relation to fatalities and seriously ill patients but those numbers should begin falling in the second half of October.
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 292,721 cases of Covid-19 in Israel, of which 51,849 are currently active cases.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 12, 2020
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