Record 2,900 Covid Cases in Last 24 Hours

Israeli hopes of beating back a second wave of the coronavirus epidemic before the chagim seemed to be fading on Wednesday as the Health Ministry reported a record-breaking 2,901 new cases in the 24-hour period from Tuesday to Wednesday evening at 7 p.m.

The death toll was also continuing to rise, with another 8 fatalities midnight Tuesday, pushing the national death toll to 969 since the outbreak in March.

The current case count stands at 121,023, of which 22,836 are active cases.

Among patients, 422 are in serious condition (126 on ventilators), 159 are in moderate condition, and the rest have mild or no symptoms.

In other coronavirus-related news, Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service reported disappointing findings on antibodies in patients who have recovered from coronavirus.

The MDA told Ynet on Wednesday that data shows the antibodies drop off sharply in a few weeks, and that 17 percent recovered patients did not produce antibodies at all.

However, those results were at odds with a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in which 30,000 people in Iceland antibodies were detected as much as four months after recovery.

Neither study was considered conclusive, and further research is indicated.