A total of 12,093 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed Wednesday, Israel's Health Ministry reported Thursday morning.
The new cases represent 17.09% of coronavirus test results received Wednesday. At the same time, the infection coefficient, which measures whether the pandemic is spreading or contracting, continued its drop, measuring 1.09.
Of the 74,025 currently active coronavirus cases around the country, 782 patients are hospitalized, among them 265 who are in serious condition.
Included in that number are 124 whose condition is critical, 19 who are on ECMO (heart and lung) machines, and 102 who are intubated.
Though the number of hospitalized, seriously ill, critically ill, ECMO, and intubated patients is still dropping, these numbers suffer a lag time of between 4-7 weeks from the time of diagnosis. It is therefore not certain that the drop will not reverse itself between mid-April and mid-May, in reflection of the mid- to end-March rise.
Meanwhile, 10,485 have died of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic two years ago.