Lebanon Coronavirus Death Toll at 1004, Lockdown Didn’t Yield Results

By Staff, Agencies

Lebanon's coronavirus death toll passed 1,000 Sunday, with 13 new deaths recorded the day before as the country is set to ease out of its second attempt at lockdown.

The Health Ministry recorded 1,266 new cases, bringing the total number of registered coronavirus cases since February to 126,903. The total number of deaths now stands at 1,004.

Of Sunday’s new cases, 11 were among travelers arriving from abroad. A total of 8,814 tests had been administered in the last 24 hours. The positivity rate of the tests in the last two weeks stood at 15.3 percent.

Lebanon’s ministerial committee for combating coronavirus made the decision Sunday to ease out of a two-week lockdown as of November 30, cutting curfew hours from 11 pm until 5 am and permitting restaurants to operate at 50 percent capacity, according to local media reports. There has been no official statement from the Interior Ministry as of yet.

In the same context, caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan Friday announced that the full lockdown would be lifted Monday, admitting that it had not yielded the desired results.

The two-week lockdown was imposed on November 14 after authorities debated how to balance Lebanon’s collapsing economy on the one hand, and the fragile health sector on the other. Lebanon has been witnessing an alarming surge in virus cases, with over 1,000 daily infections being recorded for weeks. Numbers have remained high as the lockdown comes to an end.

Hassan had previously said that an extension to the lockdown was possible if numbers did not decline. However, the deteriorating economic situation in the country with more than half the population living under the poverty line cannot endure further closures.