922 new coronavirus cases have been diagnosed since midnight, the Health Ministry announced Thursday evening. The death toll from the disease rose to 348. The number of patients in serious condition rose to 122, 39 of whom are on ventilators. There are currently 16,025 active coronavirus cases in Israel. 18,452 Israelis have recovered from the disease so far. The Ministerial Committee on the Declaration of a Restricted Area will convene at 9:30 PM Thursday night. The ministers are expected to discuss the declaration of restricted areas in neighborhoods of Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, Ramle, Lod,and Kiryat Malakhi which have seen significant outbreaks of the coronavirus recently. Kiryat Malakhi Mayor Eliyahu Zohar appealed to Interior Minister Aryeh Deri to postpone the imposition of a lockdown on his city until the municipality could take a number of steps to contain the virus, including closing schools and implementing a centralized testing system for neighborhoods with a severe outbreak to identify carriers of the disease.
