Lebanon Eases Full COVID-19 Lockdown Measures

Date: 08 February 2021 - 21:25

News ID: ۸۷۴۲۰

BEIRUT (Xinhua) – Lebanese authorities on Monday gradually started to ease the total lockdown measures in the country for the fight against COVID-19 due to the economic and financial crisis.
Lebanese authorities adopted a strategy aimed at opening the different sectors in the country in four phases to avoid big gatherings and a further increase in the number of infections, which have reached 319,917 so far with 3,616 deaths from the virus.
Banks and supermarkets opened their doors to clients, prompting people to stand in long queues waiting for their turns to withdraw money and buy their needs after over three weeks of total lockdown. Most people were wearing masks without proper respect for social distancing measures.
During the first phase, banks, supermarkets, public sector in addition to public transport will resume operations, while other sectors including cars companies, travel agencies and trade sector, will open later this month and in March.
Representatives of the different sectors in the country have been calling upon authorities to curb lockdown measures and allow them to operate to be able to survive amid the deteriorating economic situation.
Meanwhile, experts in the country expressed their concerns about the government’s plan to reduce lockdown measures amid continuous increase in infections.
Firas Abiad, director of the Rafic Hariri University Hospital, said that extending the lockdown for another week is preferable because the positive rate of COVID-19 has remained stubbornly high at over 20 percent, which means the virus is still actively spreading in the community.
Abiad noted that easing the lockdown will result in reversing any downward trend and numbers will quickly rebound.
He added that the current rate of more than 2,500 new COVID-19 cases daily is not allowing hospitals to cope with the situation.
For his part, Nasser Yassin, a professor of policy and planning at the American University of Beirut, expressed his concerns about "the high positivity rate of PCR tests at 22 percent, which is one of the highest in the world and it does not encourage the re-opening of the businesses and institutions.”
He noted that the World Health Organization is not in favor of resuming various sectors’ operations in a country unless the test positivity rate drops to 5 percent or less.