Coronavirus death toll climbs to 258, but new infections continue to ebb

Israel’s death toll from the novel coronavirus rose to 258 Monday, though the number of new confirmed infections remained low, the Health Ministry said.

Four new deaths were reported since Monday morning, bringing the total over the previous day to six. In total, 13 deaths have been reported since Saturday, when Israel went 24 hours without a single confirmed COVID-19 fatality for the first time since late March.

In contrast to the mounting death toll, which will likely continue to rise as the most severely ill succumb to the disease, the number of new infections has slowed dramatically in recent days.

The Health Ministry said the number of confirmed infections had reached 16,506, or 29 new cases over the last day.

A total of 66 people were in serious condition, including 58 hooked up to ventilators.

The ministry said the number of recovered COVID-19 patients had risen to 11,843, representing some 400 recoveries in the previous 24 hours. The number of active cases fell to 4,406.

Israel has gone nine days since seeing over 100 new confirmed cases in a single day. On Sunday, the ministry said only 14 new cases had been confirmed in the previous day, the lowest tally since the start of the outbreak, but that same day saw fewer than 4,000 tests.

Israel has the lab capacity to test up to 15,000 people for COVID-19 daily but demand has gone down, as fewer suspected cases show up to have swabs taken, the Health Ministry said last month.

Preliminary data showed over 5,000 tests performed on Monday.

Amid the sustained drop in infections, the government has increasingly rolled back restrictions meant to curb the outbreak, opening some schools and allowing many businesses to reopen, and was reportedly planning more such measures.