Israel reports 367 new COVID-19 cases, 833,407 in total

JERUSALEM, April 1 (Xinhua) -- Israel's Ministry of Health reported 367 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, raising the total confirmed tally in the country to 833,407.

The death toll from the virus rose to 6,218, with 15 new fatalities, while the number of patients in serious condition decreased from 394 to 374, out of 538 hospitalized patients.

The total recoveries in Israel rose to 820,644 with 1,080 newly recovered cases, while the number of active cases decreased to 6,545, the lowest since June 28, 2020.

The number of people vaccinated against COVID-19 in Israel has surpassed 5.25 million, or 56.5 percent of its total population, since the vaccination campaign began on Dec. 20, 2020.

The country's COVID-19 reproduction number, also known as the R number, increased from 0.53 to 0.64.

The R number is an indicator used to determine how fast the COVID-19 is spreading, as an R number greater than 1 means that the number of patients increases at an exponential rate and multiplies from time to time.

Earlier on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that the number of active coronavirus cases among Israeli soldiers dropped from 43 to 36.

This is the lowest number of active COVID-19 patients in the Israeli army since June 17, 2020.