As the government discusses when and how to lift more of the public health restrictions instated during the second nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the Health Ministry reported Wednesday morning that the number of new confirmed cases was continuing to drop.
According to ministry data, 1,165 new cases had been identified in the past 24-hour period, with 3% of the tests returning positive results.
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The number of seriously ill patients is also down, with 591 patients hospitalized in serious condition as of Wednesday morning, including 229 on ventilators. Since midnight Tuesday, no new COVID deaths were reported, and Israel's death toll from the virus remained at 2,278.
The number of active or symptomatic COVID patients in Israel as of Wednesday morning stood at 21,010.
There were 1,042 medical workers in quarantine, including 139 doctors and 263 nurses.
The Corona cabinet was due to meet at noon on Wednesday to discuss a framework for the safe reopening of the lower schools grades (1st to 4th). Children in these grades were slated to be back in the classroom a week and a half from now, pending the number of new cases identified, but the return to school could still be postponed.
In related news, the Health Ministry published a report on Wednesday that noted that children contract coronavirus and spread it to others easily, and can even be "super-spreaders."
Because most children who contract COVID are asymptomatic, the report said, many of the children who have it go undetected, but can still spread the virus to others.
The report concludes that "Children's presence in schools, especially in a state of infection that is broad both in terms of space and time, could accelerate the spread of the virus from place to place and among different age groups."
Experts cited by the report warn that Israel must return children to school gradually, based on the numbers of confirmed cases in different age groups in the children's communities.
The report noted that 8% of children tested for COVID since the end of January 2020 through the end of September 2020 turned out to be positive for the virus, compared to 6% of adults, a figure that led experts to conclude that the virus is more prevalent among children.
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