Lebanon Registers 2139 New Coronavirus Cases, 51 Related Deaths

By Staff, Agencies

Lebanon's COVID-19 cases surpassed 300,000 Sunday, with the Health Ministry reporting 2,139 cases in 24 hours in addition to 51 more deaths.

It is another grim landmark in the pandemic which came only a day after the country topped 3,000 virus-related deaths.

Lebanon witnessed a surge in daily virus deaths in the past two weeks, with a new record of 76 deaths registered Wednesday. The overall number of coronavirus-related deaths since February now stands at 3,082.

The cases were detected among 11,675 PCR tests, a Health Ministry report said. The positivity rate of the tests in the last two weeks stood at 21.8 percent.

Among the newly recorded cases, 35 were detected among travelers arriving in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry report, with the total number of cases since the virus was detected in the country in late February rising to 301,052.

The Health Ministry said 2,405 patients were in hospital for COVID-19, with 952 in ICUs and 332 on ventilators.

Lebanon, under a total lockdown until at least February 8, is set to receive its first shipment of the COVID-19 vaccine containing around 30,000 jabs from Pfizer-BioNTech by mid-Feb. Deliveries of AstraZeneca jabs are set to start before the end of the month, caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan said late Saturday.