Lebanon will begin a partial deconfinement on Monday after two weeks of almost total closure of the country against the backdrop of an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases.
After a Sunday meeting of the ministerial committee responsible for the management of the pandemic, the outgoing Minister of Health, Hamad Hassan, announced the “
gradual
”
reopening
of “
all sectors
” and businesses and the cancellation of the circulation system alternate.
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Restaurants will however reopen "
up to 50%
" of their capacity while bars and nightclubs will remain closed and weddings prohibited, Mr. Hassan said at a press conference.
The curfew will begin at 11 p.m. local each day (9 p.m. GMT), compared to 5 p.m. for the past two weeks (3 p.m. GMT).
In addition, the schools - the vast majority of which have been providing only online courses since the start of the school year - will open their doors under a hybrid regime, alternating face-to-face and distance, confirmed Mr. Hassan after a decision to this effect taken Friday by the Ministry of Education.
"
The situation will be assessed every week
" with a view to "
strengthening or relaxing
" measures a few weeks before the holidays, said the minister.
Since February, the country has officially recorded more than 125,000 cases of Covid-19, including around 1,000 deaths, for a population of around six million inhabitants, including nearly a third of Syrian or Palestinian refugees often living in camps. crowded.
The authorities sounded the alarm bell before the reconfinement, saying they feared a collapse of the health system due to a saturation of the number of intensive care beds and a high number of contaminations within the medical profession.
Before the closure, “
the occupancy rate of intensive care beds dedicated to the coronavirus varied between 80% and 90%.
Today, we have reached 65 to 70%,
”said Hamad Hassan.
“
The danger is still there.
The results of the re-containment will appear next week, and we hope that they will be less serious,
”he continued.
A first containment in March had made it possible to curb the pandemic.
But with the summer relaxation, the reopening of businesses, then the devastating explosion of August 4 at the port of Beirut which upset Lebanon, cases of contamination have skyrocketed.
The health crisis comes on top of an economic debacle unprecedented for decades, having doubled the poverty rate, and pushing economic actors to oppose a total closure.