Ministry: Tallying coronavirus cases taking longer due to additional tests

The Health Ministry says the process of counting the number of fresh coronavirus diagnoses is taking longer than normal due to the larger number of tests it has started to perform.

Ordinarily, the ministry publishes such statistics at 8 a.m. each day, followed by an updated sum later in the evening.

“As the number of places where checks are being done has gone up (20 active laboratories) and the very high number of daily checks (upwards of 2,200 tests yesterday and growing), the collection and tabulation of the statistics — the total number of confirmed carriers — is taking more time,” the ministry’s spokesman Eyal Basson says.

“We will publish the updated and confirmed number of patients as we have done throughout this crisis,” he says in a statement.