Lebanon began a new two-week reconfinement on Saturday in order to combat the skyrocketing increase in Covid-19 cases which is affecting hospitals now saturated.
According to an AFP photographer, the streets of the capital are almost deserted, police checkpoints have been erected in several places to punish offenders, while the “corniche”, which runs along the sea, is empty of its usual walkers .
A curfew is in place from 5:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time.
Beirut Airport remains open and vital sectors continue to operate.
Since the first contaminations in February, the country has officially recorded 102,607 cases of Covid-19, including 796 deaths, for a population of around six million inhabitants, including nearly a third of Syrian or Palestinian refugees often living in crowded camps.
According to the Ministry of Health, the country has around 11,000 new cases every week.
A first containment in March had made it possible to curb the pandemic. But with the summer slackening, the reopening of businesses, then the devastating explosion of August 4 at the port of Beirut which upset Lebanon, cases of contamination started to rise again.
This second confinement, scheduled until the end of November, will be extended if necessary, according to the authorities. They fear a collapse of the health system due to a saturation of the number of intensive care beds and a high number of contaminations within the medical profession.
“The situation is critical and it is getting worse” every day, Said Al-Asmar, pulmonologist at Rafic Hariri hospital, told AFP on Friday.
Sometimes “patients need intensive care and we have to leave them in the emergency room,” he adds.
On Thursday, two planes carrying medical equipment provided by Qatar arrived in Beirut to equip two field hospitals in Tire (south) and Tripoli (north), each with a capacity of 500 beds.