[ad_1]
Beirut – On Monday, the Lebanese authorities made the decision to return to general confinement in several countries, from Thursday until February 1, after registering a record rate of injuries.
The difficult Lebanese decision came in light of deteriorating economic conditions, following the unprecedented outbreak of the Crown epidemic and the inability of hospitals to receive more patients.
Before Christmas and New Years, the government allowed cabarets and bars to open their doors, despite the high number of cases, in an attempt to revive the ailing economy.
This drew criticism from health workers, who warned that the bed occupancy rate in intensive care units was dangerously high.
“The closure decision was made with the consensus of the ministerial committee, and Prime Minister Hassan Diab collected all the opinions and unified them with the general closure decision from Thursday morning until the morning of February 1, 2021.” Health Minister Hamad Hassan said Monday night after the Ministerial Committee on Coronavirus meeting.
The official National Information Agency indicated that the curfew, which will coincide with the closure, will be in force “from six in the afternoon until five in the morning.”
And the Lebanese Ministry of Health announced in its latest issue, on Sunday, that the total number of Corona virus infections in the country had risen to 8,881 and deaths to 103, after six deaths and 439 new infections were recorded.
The Interior Minister, Mohamed Fahmy, stated that “the percentage of arrivals through the Beirut airport will be reduced during the closing period”, noting that “the decision of the single and the double related to the operation of the mechanisms will be implemented” .
Officials and doctors have reported in recent days that there are major hospitals that have exceeded their capacity, with a large increase in the number of injuries, and that more patients need to enter intensive care departments, and the injured have had to wait long hours in emergency departments before securing beds.
Lebanon posted record injury rates, which peaked Thursday with 3,507 injuries, after the average injury rate ranged from 1,000 to 2,000 injuries in the previous weeks.
The total number of injured in the country exceeded 189,000, including at least 1,499 deaths.
The head of the interim government, Hassan Diab, said during the ministerial committee meeting: “There are no empty beds in various intensive care rooms and therefore we are facing a very difficult situation and we need exceptional and strict measures and implementation strict of the measures “.
The director of the Government Hospital Rafic Hariri, Firas Abyad, had previously warned in a tweet that “without resorting to the closure, the numbers will continue to increase, which will lead to exceeding the capacity of the hospital”, adding: “This happened catastrophically in other countries . If we wait more. ” … It will be too late. “
