While the updated COVID-19 morbidity and mortality data for Israel could not be published on Sunday morning due to a Health Ministry computer snafu, numbers from Saturday night show a decrease in new cases and a small jump in the death toll to 2,372.
The 27,481 coronavirus tests process in a 24-hour period from Friday night to Saturday night returned fewer than 700 confirmed new cases.
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As of Saturday night, the number of active or symptomatic cases in Israel stood at 15,833, a drop of 679 since midnight between Friday and Saturday. Most (13,852) of the patients were at home, with 1,012 in coronavirus "hotel" facilities and 969 in hospitals.
Of the hospitalized patients, 548 were listed in serious condition and 220 were on ventilators.
A total of 309,413 Israelis have contracted the virus since the start of the epidemic in Israel, and 291,206 have recovered.
There were 934 medical workers in quarantine, including 125 doctors and 262 nurses.
Meanwhile, while Israel was the first country in the world to declare a second nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus, COVID is once again rearing its head in Europe, prompting the European Union's disease control agency and healthcare professionals to sound the alarm over a surge in coronavirus cases across the continent. The World Health Organization has warned of an "exponential" rise in infection.
Countries that avoided severe outbreaks during Europe's first wave of contagion in the spring are now seeing rising virus cases cause havoc. On Saturday, Germany's death toll passed 10,000.
Governments have reintroduced containment measures to slow the renewed spread of the virus in nations that only weeks earlier believed they had triumphed over the crisis.
But many people across the continent, who have grown frustrated with social distancing measures and grinding economic conditions, have pushed back against re-imposing new restrictions, including overnight clashes in hard-hit Naples between Italian police and hundreds of protesters.
The continent was facing a major threat to public health and a "highly concerning epidemiological situation," said Andrea Ammon, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
The agency said all EU countries except Cyprus, Estonia, Finland and Greece fell into a "serious concern" category, as did the United Kingdom, up from just seven a month ago.
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After Spain became the first European country to officially record 1 million COVID-19 cases earlier in the week, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Friday the real number of infections was likely more than triple that number.
Urgent new restrictions on daily life have come into effect in several nations, with France extending a curfew to cover 46 million people.
Parts of Italy, including Rome, went under curfew late Friday, prompting a call to protest on social media that saw hundreds of demonstrators in Naples throw objects at police and set garbage bins on fire.
The country is reeling from its worst post-war recession after a grueling two-month national lockdown prompted by one of Europe's worst outbreaks, and authorities have so far been reluctant to repeat the drastic quarantine restrictions seen then.
Wales entered a full lockdown on Friday evening, a day after Ireland shut down, while Poland adopted a nationwide "red zone" lockdown mandating the partial closure of primary schools and restaurants.
Only Sweden, which famously refused to lock down earlier this year, continued to stick to its guns despite a rise in cases.
Part of this article was first published by i24NEWS.
