Israel’s Health Ministry reported Wednesday night that 1,200 Israelis were diagnosed with COVID-19 within the past 24 hours, slightly fewer than the 1,306 new coronavirus cases reported Tuesday.
The ministry confirmed that 170 cases of the virus were diagnosed Tuesday with the Omicron variant, bringing the total number of Omicron diagnoses to 341 cases in Israel.
The figure brought the country’s positivity rate to 1.25 percent, and raised the R number, which indicates how many people are infected by one COVID-19 patient, to 1.35, from the 1.28 reported a day earlier.
Nevertheless, the number of Israelis in serious and critical condition from the virus continues to drop slowly and steadily: as of Wednesday 80 patients were listed in serious condition, with 38 dependent upon respirators to survive.
Since the start of the pandemic 8,235 Israelis have lost their lives to the coronavirus.
At least 4,170,593 Israelis have been inoculated with a third, booster shot of COVID-19 vaccine, the Health Ministry reported.