BEIRUT (AP) – It was a choice between curbing a spiraling virus outbreak and reviving a dying economy in a country that has been in a steady financial and economic collapse over the past year. The authorities in Lebanon chose the latter.
Now virus patients struggling to breathe wait outside hospitals – hoping that a bed or even a chair will open. Ordinary people share oxygen supplier contact lists on social media as critical gas becomes scarce and the sound of ambulances bringing the bad echoes across Beirut. According to the Order of Physicians, about 500 of the 14,000 doctors in Lebanon have left the crisis-ridden country in recent months, putting even more pressure on existing hospital staff.
On Thursday, Lebanese authorities waved the other way: They began enforcing an 11-day nationwide shutdown and a 24-hour curfew, hoping to slow the spread of out-of-control coronavirus infections after the holiday season.
Curfew is the strictest measure taken by Lebanon since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Previous shutdowns had less strict rules and were poorly enforced. Now residents cannot leave their homes except for a specific range of reasons, such as going to the bakery, pharmacy, doctor’s office, hospital or airport – and for the first time, they must apply for a permit before doing these things. Even supermarkets can open for delivery only.
While Lebanon somehow still managed to keep an average of less than 100 cases per day through August, it is now leading the Arab world in numbers of cases per million people. Today, the number of daily COVID-19 deaths is more than 13 times higher than in July. More than 5,400 infections were reported on January 9, a record for the small country.
On Thursday, Lebanon registered a new daily record of 41 deaths, bringing the total number of recorded cases to nearly 237,200 and 1,781 deaths, the Ministry of Health said.
As its neighbors begin to vaccinate their populations – including Israel whose campaign promises to be one of the fastest in the world – Lebanon has yet to shoot a first batch. Once a leader in the health sector in Middle Eastern countries, Lebanon has been hampered in its attempt to get vaccines by repeated bureaucratic delays, in part due to the fact that it has a temporary government.
Parliament is expected to meet on Friday to vote on a bill to allow imports of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and the first deliveries are expected to arrive next month.
“This is the result of deliberate decisions made by irresponsible and immoral politicians,” said Sami Hanna, a 42-year-old businessman who was waiting his turn to enter a pharmacy earlier this week in search of painkillers, antidepressants and blood pressure medicine for his elderly person. parents.
“This is how we now spend our days begging,” he said, adding that his next mission was to find bread, which was out of stock due to panic buying before curfew. “It’s too little, too late.”
The rise in coronavirus cases began in late August, a few weeks after the massive explosion in the port of Beirut that devastated parts of the capital, including several hospitals with virus patients.
The explosion was triggered by a fire that detonated nearly three tons of poorly stored ammonium nitrate that had been sitting in a port warehouse for years – the kind of mismanagement typical of a corrupt political class that doesn’t even provide basic services for its people. .
The virus took off in the chaos of flooded hospitals, funerals and protests that followed.
The attempts to contain the virus are even more complicated, as politicians have been unable to agree on a new government since the old one stepped down in the wake of the harbor explosion.
But in December, when most governments around the world tightened the lockdown, Lebanon went the other way, allowing restaurants and nightclubs to reopen with hardly any restrictions. An estimated 80,000 expats flocked to the country to celebrate Christmas and New Year with loved ones – many of whom were Lebanese who skipped the visit in the summer due to the devastation caused by the explosion.
“The holiday period should have been the time for lockdown. The season of hustle and bustle, shopping and partying, ”says Hanna Azar, owner of a money transfer and telephone shop. They opened it to let dollars into the country and now they want to close. Especially in this economic crisis, people have no money to eat. ”
Many hospitals have now reached the maximum capacity for coronavirus patients. Some no longer have beds, oxygen tanks and fans. Others have discontinued elective surgery.
Last week, Lebanon imposed a nationwide 25-day lockdown and curfew to limit the spread of the virus, but many sectors were exempted and enforcement was lax, as in the past. Many businesses, including hairdressing salons, welcomed customers behind shuttered shop windows. In some parts of North and South Lebanon, things just continued.
As hospitals were on the verge of collapse, the government then ordered an 11-day nationwide curfew starting Thursday, which sparked three days of chaos as crowds of shoppers cleared the shelves in supermarkets and bakeries.
On Thursday, police manned checkpoints across the country and checked motorists’ permission to be on the road.
Halim Shebaya, a political analyst, said the government still does not have a clear strategy and warned it would be difficult to lower the numbers so late in the game.
“The main problem now is the lack of confidence in the government and the authorities. To contain a pandemic, the public must have confidence in the measures the authorities are taking,” he said.
Still, Rabih Torbay, head of Project HOPE, an international global health and humanitarian organization, said time is of the essence and urged authorities to take any step that could help curb infections.
“Each day that passes, the land slips further into the abyss,” he said.
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Associated Press journalists Fadi Tawil and Bilal Hussein contributed to the coverage.