Lebanon Registers 61 More COVID-19 Deaths, 2,063 New Cases

By Staff, Agencies

Lebanon registered 61 new coronavirus deaths and 2,063 more cases Monday, as the country eased into the first day of a gradual reopening after a total lockdown.

The cases were detected among 8,140 tests. The positivity rate of the tests in the last two weeks stood at 22 percent.

The total number of cases since the virus was first detected in the country in late February 2020 rose to 321,980 according to the Health Ministry. The total number of fatalities stands at 3,677.

The Health Ministry said 2,254 patients were in hospital for COVID-19, with 906 in ICUs and 311 on ventilators.

Lebanese authorities took the decision to gradually ease the total lockdown imposed to curb the dangerous spread of the virus, despite the country registering a record 98 deaths last week.

The first stage of the government’s four-part plan went into effect Monday, with supermarkets finally opening their doors for customers, banks operating at 20 percent intake capacity and some factories resuming operations.

Meanwhile, the health minister’s adviser told local media that the first shipment of the coronavirus vaccine is expected to arrive at the end of this week or the beginning of next week.

The first shipment will be from Pfizer-BioNTech containing around 30,000 jabs from a total of 2.1 million doses reserved by the Lebanese government with similar weekly shipments into late March. A shipment of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jabs is also expected to arrive in March.