by arabnews.com — NAJIA HOUSSARI —BEIRUT: Lebanon on Saturday reported 10 new cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), pushing the total number to 619. The number of people in quarantine in hospitals is 1,282, 387, most of whom are from Mount Lebanon and 311 from the north. During a tour to parts of Khroub district, where COVID-19 cases have been recorded, Health Minister Hamad Hassan described the results of the general mobilization as “good.” “We must continue to restrict movement and ban gatherings. We have been seeing stability in the cases’ figures,” he said.

The authorities have decided to impose a curfew on Sunday and during Easter to restrict people’s movement. Bsharri district has entered a mass quarantine, starting on Saturday, in light of the growing number of cases. Eddie Lazem, the director of Bsharri’s government hospital, announced that the number of tests carried out in a few hours had reached 70. The number of COVID-19 cases in northern Lebanon is 125, and there are 329 cases in Mount Lebanon. Matn district in Mount Lebanon continues to have the highest number of cases in Lebanon, with 124 infected people as of Saturday. Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Bizri, an infectious disease specialist and member of the emergency committee on coronavirus, told Arab News: “Tracking the sources of the novel coronavirus infection continues and might reduce the number of cases of unknown sources to three cases only.”

Meanwhile, video footage of a Lebanese doctor went viral on social media on Saturday. The date of the recording is unknown but it shows an exhausted doctor wearing a face mask in a room inside a medical center. An ambulance siren can be heard in the background. He speaks on the phone and says: “Can you recognize me? I cannot take my mask off. I’m very exhausted. I have been working for 30 hours, standing on my feet. Things are out of control here. One batch of patients after the other. We received yesterday a batch from Sayyida Zainab (in Damascus), all of whom are infected (with coronavirus). Everyone you ask would tell you they have been with an Iranian. Iranians have become producers of coronavirus. It is a catastrophe. I do not know why Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah is not interfering. It is a catastrophe. No one can carry on like this.” Hashem Safieddine, head of Hezbollah’s executive council, spoke two weeks ago about Hezbollah’s plan to fight COVID-19. He talked about “the assigning of 24,500 doctors and paramedics to implement the plan, in addition to another team of 4,500 people from the party, municipalities (controlled by Hezbollah), and a medical team from Amal Movement.”