The Military Intelligence taskforce monitoring the coronavirus pandemic warned Monday that COVID infection rates were again climbing after falling for a number of weeks.
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The data released by the unit shows that the basic reproduction number, or R – the number of new cases diagnosed from each coronavirus infection – was not at 0.96, after having fallen to 0.9 a week earlier.
Israel has recorded 646,277 coronavirus cases since the onset of the global pandemic in March 2020, including 4,808 deaths. So far, 573,155 Israelis have recovered from the disease.
The Health Ministry said that 5,140 new cases were diagnosed over the last 24 hours, pegging the positivity rate at 9.7%.
Currently, there are 68,331 active cases. Of them, 1,140 patients are in serious condition, including 390 in critical condition and 315 on ventilators.
The ministry said 3,081,162 Israelis have received the first dose of the COVID vaccine, and 1,790,121 have been vaccinated in full.
The military task force said that despite the uptick in infections, there was a decrease in the number of serious patients over the age of 60. The encouraging drop could be attributed to the national vaccination drive, which kicked off with that age group.
Health Ministry data, however, revealed that around a third of total reported COVID-19 deaths in Israel since last year took place in January.
Monday's figures were released on the heels of a cabinet decision to extend the nationwide lockdown until Friday morning at 7 a.m.
Ben Gurion International Airport will also remain closed, and any arrivals in Israel will be placed under mandatory quarantine in state-run hotels.
The cabinet is slated to meet on Wednesday to decide whether to extend the lockdown again.
Still, Coronavirus Commissioner Nachman Ash said Sunday that extending the lockdown further would bring about only a minor decrease in morbidity.
Commenting on a query by Blue and White lawmakers, Ash said he expected a further week of lockdown to reduce the number of critical patients by some 100 to 150.
Finance Minister Israel Katz on Monday called on the cabinet to allow the private sector to resume all commerce as soon as the lockdown is lifted.
Pushing back against a claim by Deputy Health Minister Yoav Kisch that the lockdown had saved 2,000 lives, Katz said, "I do not think that is true. All businesses and trade should be opened immediately at the end of the lockdown.
"These places are not a source of infection but a place of livelihood. The fact is that when they were closed, the morbidity still went up."
Also on Monday, health officials told local media that, for the first time, an Israeli man who had recovered from the coronavirus was found to infected with the South African COVID strain.
Ziv Yaffe, 57, recently returned from Turkey. Speaking to Channel 12 News, he said that while he was sick when he first contracted the coronavirus, this time he was asymptomatic.
He was diagnosed after undergoing tests as part of a study taking place research at the Shamir Medical Center in central Israel.
The test showed that he had been re-infected and further analysis revealed that he had caught the South African variant.
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