By Staff, Agencies

Lebanon registered Thursday 82 new coronavirus deaths and 3,107 more cases, as the Information Ministry launched a media campaign for the country's national coronavirus vaccination program.

The cases were detected among 15,016 tests. The positivity rate of the tests in the last two weeks stood at 21.8 percent.

Among the newly recorded cases, only six were detected among travelers arriving in Lebanon, according to the Health Ministry report, with the total number of cases since the virus was first detected in the country in late February rising to 312,269. The total number of fatalities stands at 3,397.

The Health Ministry said 2,275 patients were in hospital for COVID-19, with 914 in ICUs and 325 on ventilators.

With the current total lockdown due to expire Monday morning, authorities are set to meet Friday to discuss whether or not they will extend it or gradually reopen. Officials said the national coronavirus committee is headed toward slowly reopening the country to appease business owners and people who rely on income from daily work.

While daily cases have started to decline, fatalities and the positivity rate remains high. The World Health Organization in Lebanon reported Tuesday that ICU occupancy at hospitals was full in Beirut and over 90 percent in the rest of the country.

Meanwhile, Caretaker Information Minister Manal Abdel-Samad said at the launch of the awareness campaign, “Citizens are being misled and false news about the vaccine is spread on social media sites, so it is necessary to always verify the source and validity of the news.

“The medical vaccine can increase our immunity against the corona epidemic, but awareness is the [media's version] of a vaccine to combat the pandemic of false information."

The campaign, in cooperation with the Health Ministry, will be broadcast through television, social media, online and radio channels to highlight preventive measures against the virus, the safety and benefits of vaccines, and also inform the public about the distribution plan.

Lebanon’s vaccine drive will begin this month with the arrival of 30,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab due Feb. 17, while 250,000 doses are expected by the end of March. Front-line health care workers, the elderly aged over 75, and those with chronic illnesses will be invited to receive the jab first.