Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Sunday that the country is beginning to see the end of the wave of the highly infectious Omicron variant, Trend reports citing Xinhua.
"We are seeing the beginning of a trend of stabilization in the Omicron wave," Bennett said during a live broadcast at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting.
Bennett also expressed cautious optimism. "I choose my words carefully to avoid the 'end of semester' atmosphere, and celebrating the end of omicron is out of place," he warned, adding currently Israel is "dealing with congestion in the hospitals and a very large number of the infected people."
The remarks came as a report issued by the Israeli health ministry on Sunday morning showed the coronavirus reproduction rate, known as the R number, has fallen below 1 for the first time in months.
The R number, which represents the number of people expected to be infected by the virus, reached 2.12 in mid-January and fell to 0.95 on Sunday, according to the report.
The ministry also reported 45,258 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total tally to 2,759,031 in the country with a population of 9.45 million.
The death toll from the virus in Israel rose by one to 8,658, while the number of COVID-19 patients in serious condition increased by 1,010 to 1,069, the highest figure since February 2021, it added.
The number of active cases totaled 461,929, while the positive rate of all daily COVID-19 tests slightly decreased to 27 percent.