21st resident of Yavne’el nursing home dies, taking Israel’s virus toll to 223
62-year-old man with underlying health issues dies of COVID-19 at Tiberias hospital; Health Ministry says overall number of cases rises by just 134 in 24 hours
A 62-year-old man died of COVID-19 on Friday morning, the 21st resident of a Yavne’el nursing home to die as a result of the coronavirus.
The Baruch Padeh Medical Center in Tiberias said the man had complex underlying health conditions.
The fatality took the national death toll from the novel coronavirus to 223.
The Health Ministry said Friday morning that the overall number of cases rose to 16,004, up 134 in 24 hours as the downturn in infections persisted.
Meanwhile, the gap between the number of recovered patients and active cases continued to grow, with the number of recovered patients rising to 8,758 — an increase of 346 over the previous 24 hours.
According to the health data, 105 people are currently in serious condition with COVID-19, 82 of them on ventilators. Another 82 are in moderate condition, while the vast majority (6,836) of the active cases are displaying mild symptoms.
In recent days, Israel’s infection rate has dropped off significantly, with only dozens of new cases being reported every 12 hours, and the government has announced steps to ease restrictions on businesses and travel.
The lower number of cases has coincided with a drop in testing. Though the ministry says it has the capacity to run 15,000 samples a day but not enough suspected cases to test.
Israel on Thursday returned to some semblance of normalcy, with much of the country opening up following two days of ramped up restrictions in place for the Memorial Day and Independence Day holidays.
The country was put into lockdown on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday for Independence Day, although medical care was exempted from those regulations. It was unclear whether this affected testing rates.
