The Health Ministry on Monday expressed cautious optimism that Israel has finally gotten the second coronavirus outbreak under control, saying that morbidity was at its lowest rate since June.
Israel has recorded 303,846 coronavirus cases since mid-March, including 2,209 deaths. So far, 272,015 Israelis have recovered from the disease.
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Over the past 24 hours, just 892 new corona cases were diagnosed, bringing that rate of positive tests to 3.5% out of 25,623 tests screened.
The national tally of active coronavirus cases dipped below 30,000, the data showed.
These encouraging figures came as Israel began rolling back lockdown measures on Sunday. The lockdown – Israel's second in six months – was imposed after the rate of positive tests reached 15% in late September.
Also on Monday, coronavirus commissioner Professor Ronni Gamzu told the Knesset Health Committee that the mandatory quarantine period imposed on those exposed to COVID patients will soon be cut from 14 to 12.
"People can exit quarantine two days early so long as they take a coronavirus test 10 days into the isolation period," he explained.
Committee Chairman MK Haim Katz (Likud) agreed that "While health comes first, if we can forego quarantine days it would help the economy."
Meanwhile, Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit has decided not to open an investigation into Environmental Protection Minister Gamliel (Likud), who knowingly misled the Health Ministry during her contact tracing investigation after she violated the coronavirus lockdown and contacted the disease.
Mendelblit noted that while her conduct was lacking, his office's review of the matter found that "she fully complied" with the epidemiological investigation.
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