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Lebanon registered its first infection with the new strain of the emerging corona virus on board a plane that arrived from Britain days ago, Health Minister Hamad Hassan announced on Friday.
On Thursday, Lebanon recorded 2,708 cases and 20 deaths, bringing the total number of new coronavirus infections so far to 165,933 cases, including 1,353 deaths.
Hassan announced in a tweet that “a case of the new wave of Covid-19 was registered” on a flight that arrived from London on the 21 of this month.
Lebanon missed the countries that stopped flights from Britain, where the new strain of the virus is spreading, but the government took other steps, including examining all UK arrivals twice, the first time at its arrival in Lebanon and the second after 72 hours.
Officials in Lebanon fear the collapse of the health system, especially with the high number of injuries among medical staff and their inability to receive new patients as intensive care beds are full. The number of injured in the health sector reached 1933, including 12 deaths.
Lebanon has eased the two-week lockdown measures it imposed last month, with infections spiked in an attempt to revive the economy during the holidays.
The increasing spread of the virus comes at a time when Lebanon is witnessing its worst economic crisis, which has doubled poverty rates, prompting economic bodies to oppose closure restrictions.
The first national lockdown imposed in March succeeded in curbing the spread of the virus, before restrictions were gradually lifted in early summer.
However, the number of cases later increased, especially after the airport reopened and after the Beirut port bomb attack on August 4, which killed more than 200 people and injured at least 6,500.
