Lebanon Registers 1261 New Coronavirus Cases, 10 More Deaths

By Staff, Agencies

Lebanon recorded 1,261 new coronavirus cases and 10 deaths Tuesday as the head of Parliament’s Health Committee MP Assem Araji warned that public disregard for virus containment measures was leading the crisis-hit country to a “dangerous place.”

Araji’s warning came as local test positivity continued to soar, with 9.4 percent of the 13,368 PCR tests carried out in the past 24 hours coming back positive. Just one of the new cases confirmed within that period was from an inbound traveler. Local test positivity over the past two weeks stands at 10.3 percent.

“The positivity rate of PCR tests has become very high, and this is a worrying sign that can take us to a dangerous place, which is a result of people not adhering to prevention guidelines,” Araji said in an interview with local TV channel Al-Jadeed, going on to blame security forces and the Interior and Tourism ministries for not implementing prevention measures effectively.

Since Sunday, 111 villages and towns across Lebanon have been under lockdown, as more than eight positive COVID-19 cases had been registered per 100,000 people over the preceding 14 days.

The way in which this decision was made has come under criticism, however, as Lebanon lacks reliable demographic data that would allow the level of risk within towns and villages to be assessed accurately.

Public health expert Sara Chang said that the overall threat level in Lebanon was “critical,” meaning that COVID-19 cases are “growing rapidly and/or preparedness is below standards.”

Noting the elevated number of hospitalizations and people in intensive care, she warned that “there is a high risk of hospital overload.”

The Health Ministry’s hospital occupancy dashboard showed that intensive care occupancy was at 71.8 percent, with just 41 empty beds across the country. There were 208 regular COVID-19 beds available.

The number of people in intensive care was up 70 percent on the start of September, with 165 current ICU patients compared to 97 on September 1. Just under 37 percent of patients were on respirators.

On average over the past seven days, there have been 17.5 new cases per 100,000 people, which Chang described as “a very large number.”

The latest cases bring the tally of infections in Lebanon since February to 46,918 cases, with coronavirus related complications causing the death of 4,244 of those people.