A total of 2,386 new cases of the coronavirus were diagnosed across Israel Tuesday, according to data released by the Health Ministry Wednesday morning, down from 5,178 new cases reported Monday.

However, the sharp decline in the number of newly diagnosed cases was in part a result of the lower number of tests conducted Tuesday, falling from 139,459 tests on Monday to 73,080 on Tuesday, which marked the Sh’mini Atzeret / Simchat Torah festivals.

The percentage of tests coming back positive also fell Tuesday, declining to 3.42%, down from 3.87% on Monday. That is the lowest level recorded since the beginning of August.

There are now 53,994 known active cases of the virus across Israel, including 966 hospitalized patients with COVID.

Since the pandemic began, 1,275,405 confirmed cases of the virus have been reported.

The number of seriously ill patients fell Wednesday from 660 Tuesday to 659. Of those, 276 are in critical condition, with 216 on respirators.

The infection coefficient, which measures the decline or expansion of the pandemic, fell to 0.73 on September 18th, the latest day for which data is available, falling from 0.75 the day before. The reproduction coefficient (R) has remained below 1.0 since September 6th, marking a decline in the pandemic.

(Arutz 7).