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The one-week closure decision came after Lebanon entered the “final stage of the epidemic’s spread,” as described by Petra Khoury, the medical adviser to the prime minister in the interim government, Hassan Diab. Khoury, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, indicated that Lebanon is classified as “high risk”, as the occupancy rate of hospitals exceeded 90 percent, especially in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, as well as the percentage of positive examinations of the number of general examinations ranged between 9 and 10 percent during In the last period, a note that Lebanon registered 250 injured per 100,000 in the last 14 days, and this is a negative sign.
Khoury pointed out that there is another negative indicator on the Corona issue, which is that “the number of deaths from the virus has doubled at a faster rate than the global one.” Faced with this situation, the Ministry of the Interior, based on the recommendations of the Corona government committee, decided to close 111 towns, most of which were concentrated in Mount Lebanon and the North, instead of closing the country entirely.
Although some municipalities considered that the decision of the Ministry of the Interior to close the country was not justified and wanted to reconsider it, Khoury clarified that the choice of towns and villages “was based on a global standard adopted in countries that do not want to completely close the country.” and that it was based on “The results of a survey on the number of injured and their transfer per 100,000 people. Subsequently, the areas that were classified with (high risk level), which registered 8 cases of contagion per day, were closed for at least 14 days.
Khoury indicated that after the closing week another evaluation of the state of these municipalities and villages will be carried out, to be classified again, noting that the closure will help the Ministry of Health to track and limit the spread of the virus.
And the Minister of Health in the interim government, Hamad Hassan, indicated that the closure decision “is bold and reflects the concerns of society and the daily challenges of life, especially in light of the suffocating economic crisis”, considering that “No one dies of hunger in light of community solidarity, but they can die from the virus.”
For his part, the head of the Parliamentary Health Commission, Representative Assem Araji, said that “the closure decision is a wise decision in light of the widespread spread of the epidemic and the fatigue of the health sector due to pressure on it. “. He noted in an interview with “Asharq Al-Awsat” that the medical and nursing corps “has been completely exhausted”, and that it is not able to continue in case the matter is not resolved.
Araji considered that the real lesson is not always closure, but implementation. “The closures that resemble past closures, which were ink on paper, do not make sense.” He asked the competent authorities to fulfill their duties and ensure the implementation of the closure decision, and the public to adhere to preventive measures because continuing with the current situation can put us “soon in the face of a real catastrophe.” Regarding the hospital’s capacity, Araji pointed out that “we are in a very cautious situation”, and that after the recent agreement between the Ministry of Health, the guarantors and the private hospitals, it was expected that “the situation would relax a bit”, except that “many complaints did not. It keeps coming in daily regarding the refusal of private hospitals to receive Corona patients. “
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