The coronavirus was continuing to quickly spread across Israel, the Health Ministry reported on Tuesday morning, with numbers similar to those recorded at the height of the second wave of the pandemic in early October.
The ministry also reported 5,499 new cases on Monday, amid growing criticism of the nationwide lockdown imposed by the government on Sunday evening.
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Meanwhile, Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said Tuesday morning that some 500,000 Israelis have already received coronavirus vaccinations, including 115,000 people on Monday.
"More people have been vaccinated than are currently sick. More than 115,000 citizens were vaccinated on Monday. Altogether, 495,000 people have been vaccinated thus far. In the nine days since inoculations began, we've vaccinated more people than all the people infected since the outbreak of the pandemic. It's not for nothing that we are the world leader in terms of inoculation speed. We are continuing to vaccinate Israel," Edelstein said.
Around 2.4 million more vaccine doses are expected to arrive in the country in the coming days, Edelstein added.
The positive test rate on Monday stood at 5.6% out of 97,829 tests that were administered. As of 10 a.m. Tuesday, 765 new cases were recorded at a positive test rate of 4.1% out of 18,875 tests.
The number of active cases throughout the country stood at 38,656 people.
The number of people hospitalized across the country was 1,025, among them 593 in serious condition, 178 in critical condition, and 146 patients on ventilators. Among medical workers, 3,228 were in isolation, including 436 doctors and 851 nurses.
Most medical personnel have now received vaccinations, followed by citizens aged 60 and up.
However, while the first dose does have an immunization effect against the coronavirus, as studies by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have shown, a second dose is needed to complete the immunization process with a higher rate of efficacy.
Despite this, experts have stressed that the influence of the vaccines on the population could be felt within a week.
Meanwhile, despite the public outcry in recent months against portions of the Haredi sector for flaunting safety guidelines, such as avoiding large gatherings, Haredim appeared to be flocking in droves to vaccination clinics following calls from numerous prominent rabbis.
"The response has been overwhelming," a medical official familiar with the Haredi sector told Israel Hayom. There are long lines in Haredi neighborhoods and cities until the late hours of the night."
The number of deaths since the outbreak of the pandemic now stands at 3,256 people.
Outside of Israel, however, new discoveries of coronavirus mutations could complicate matters.
In India alone, 19 coronavirus variants with "escape mutations," which allow them to evade the antibodies generated by immune systems, are circulating.
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One such variant, N440K, is spreading fast in Andhra Pradesh in the country's north and recently reinfected a young medical worker who had previously recovered from the original strain, according to a new report released in India.
The new variant's clinical significance is yet to be understood with scientists observing that further data and analysis would be required to investigate the potential impact of such variants on the efficacy of different vaccines.
Another variant that made global headlines as the new mutated UK strain N501Y was present in 290 genomes, including genomes from the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, the US, Denmark and Brazil. In Australia, one mutation, S477N, was found in 67% of 14,000 plus genomes that were analyzed.
