On Thursday, Lebanon’s Higher Defense Council met at Baabda Palace for an emergency meeting with President Michel Aoun to decide on the next action to take in combating the increasing coronavirus infections and deaths.
Based on the recommendations of the national scientific COVID-19 committee, it was decided to extend the lockdown beyond Monday, January 25th.
The lockdown was now extended for another 2 weeks until February 8th with a full 24-hour curfew.
This is the second time the Higher Defense Council announces new decisions while Lebanon is already under lockdown.
Lebanon was initially under a 25-day lockdown until February 1st, but the country’s experts convened to make it even stricter until January 25th, by declaring a state of emergency.
However, as the country experiences a health catastrophe with overloaded hospitals transforming their cafeterias to treat coronavirus patients or treating patients in their cars, Lebanon’s experts had no choice but to extend the lockdown.
While the Health Minister (who, by the way, also contracted the virus) believes he triumphed in dealing with the pandemic, the shortage of oxygen tanks shows otherwise.
That being said, it’s worth mentioning that Lebanon is set to begin receiving the first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine as of early February.
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