BEIRUT (Al Jazeera) – Lebanon has extended a hard lockdown by two weeks amid record-breaking numbers of COVID-related deaths and an unabated surge in the number of new cases that have stretched the country’s healthcare system to its limits.
Meanwhile, a top health official has announced plans for a roll-out of vaccinations in the crisis-hit country that he said would see some three million of the country’s inhabitants – roughly half the population – receive the jab by the end of the year.
Assem Araji, the head of Lebanon’s parliamentary health committee, announced that the first batch of doses would arrive in the first week of February and that priority would be given to healthcare workers and those over the age of 74.
Lebanon has struggled to bring a COVID outbreak under control since the August port explosion that killed 200, injured more than 6,000 and destroyed large parts of Beirut, including several hospitals.
Cases jumped from double figures to hundreds in July and into more than a thousand by late September and have averaged more than 5,000 per day since the beginning of the year with a positivity rate of roughly 20 percent, indicating wide community spread.
The country implemented a nationwide lockdown with an overnight curfew on January 7, allowing for a range of exceptions.
But daily new-case records continued to be broken and an outcry from health professionals led officials to impose a hard lockdown with a 24-hour curfew on January 14.
Originally scheduled to last just 11 days, the lockdown was extended on Thursday until February 8.
Under the strict measures, most businesses and factories must close and even supermarkets and restaurants can only operate via home delivery.
The Lebanese state has promised to provide aid to some 280,000 families.