Health Ministry registers 2,766 cases in 24 hours as COVID-19 surge continues

After reports broke that localized lockdowns will commence next week on 30 cities, Israel’s coronavirus czar Prof. Ronni Gamzu clarified Friday morning that such a decision hasn’t yet been made.

“Yesterday’s proposal was to impose lockdowns on eight cities with especially high morbidity rates and imposing movement restrictions on all ‘red’ cities,” Gamzu was quoted as saying by Hebrew-language outlet N12.

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“The final decision will be made over the weekend and will be approved by the government on Sunday,” he added.

Israel implemented Gamzu’s color-coded “Traffic Light” system which designates different areas by their morbidity rates. “Red areas” are zones deemed with the highest infection figures, slated for harshest government imposed measures in order to curtail the spread of the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, new data released by the Health Ministry showed that 2,766 individuals tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. In total, laboratories across the state conducted 33,344 screening tests, coming up with a positive ratio of 8.3 percent.

These are some of the highest daily figures Israel has recorded since the outbreak of the pandemic in March. Read more at i24