Posted on 07/25/21
| News Source: i24
Country continues to grapple with high number of daily infections due to highly contagious delta variant
Israel on Sunday reported 966 new COVID-19 cases with 97 patients in serious or critical condition, according to Health Ministry data.
A total of 22 patients were listed as critical as of Sunday morning with 17 people on respirators.
The positive test rate stood at 1.79 percent out of 54,316 people tested for the virus on Sunday.
The number of active patients in Israel stood at 11,390 with the total number of deaths since the pandemic began at 6,459.
More than 5.2 million people in Israel have received both vaccine doses.
Sunday's numbers are generally considered not reflective of the actual trend in Israel because Saturday is the Shabbat holiday when fewer people are tested and it is harder to reach observant Jews.
The country is facing an outbreak of the highly contagious delta variant circulating globally and has experienced the highest daily number of COVID-19 infections since March, although there has not been a corresponding spike in serious and critical cases that is due to the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine against severe symptoms.