Lebanese hospitals are overwhelmed by the epidemic and the explosion in the port of Beirut on August 4.
The Lebanese are called upon to stay at home: the authorities have announced a reconfinement from August 21 until September 7, as well as a curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. The country is facing a surge in coronavirus cases, which is overloading hospitals already mobilized to treat the more than 6,500 people injured in the explosion at the port of Beirut.
An epidemic “out of control”
Earlier this week, resigning Interior Minister Mohammad Fahmi said the pandemic had become “out of control”as reported by the Lebanese newspaper The Orient By Day. More than 10,000 cases have been identified in the country since the start of the epidemic: every day, their number increases. Thursday, 605 new contaminations were recorded and four deaths. Earlier this week, the resigning Minister of Health, Hamad Hassan, declared that there were no more beds available in intensive care, in the units dedicated to the coronavirus in Beirut. “Hospitals are no longer able to accommodate cases, there is a shortage of medical equipment and medicines, and people are not respecting the measures”said Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, to The Orient By Day.
No reconfinement in the affected neighborhoods
This new containment aims to contain the spread of the virus. “Private and commercial companies, shops, shopping centers and popular markets, restaurants, cafes and night clubs, maritime cornices, tourist centers, fields and sports clubs, swimming pools, parks and amusements and arcades will be closed”, specifies the Lebanese media. Gatherings are also prohibited. The neighborhoods affected by the explosion are exempt from reconfinement, all clearing and reconstruction work can continue. In July, a new phase of containment had been announced by the Lebanese government, but it had not been implemented because of the explosion.
.