Customers dine last week at a cafe in Saida. (Credit: Aziz Taher/Reuters)
BEIRUT — Lebanese authorities will enforce a two-day total lockdown for Eid al-Fitr to prevent large gatherings and the subsequent spread of coronavirus during the holiday, the country’s Disaster Risk Management Unit announced on Tuesday.
The lockdown will begin at 5 a.m. on the first day of the religious holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan and last for two days. The first day of Eid has yet to be confirmed as it is determined by the sighting of the moon.
Restaurants and cafes will be closed for dine-in customers but delivery services will continue to operate. Places of worship will be permitted to operate at 30 percent capacity. Travelers will be permitted to go to and from the airport.
Residents will be required to get a permit from the Impact mobile application or via SMS if they want to go to grocery stores, bakeries and hospitals.
This lockdown is the latest in a series of COVID-19 preventive measures, following two other similar total lockdowns imposed for both the Catholic and Orthodox long-weekend Easter holidays in April. Over the past month the country has been under a partial COVID-19 lockdown, with a 9:30 p.m. nightly curfew, in an attempt to discourage super-spreader events during Ramadan.
Lebanon witnessed an alarming surge of COVID-19 cases following 2020’s Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, with the number of new infections detected daily remaining in the thousands throughout January and on one occasion exceeding 6,000.
Following a strict weekslong total lockdown at the beginning of the year, COVID-19 cases in Lebanon have steadily declined.
“With many things in Lebanon currently heading in the wrong direction, the continuous drop in the COVID numbers is much welcomed,” head of Rafik Hariri University Hospital Firass Abiad wrote in a series of tweets on Tuesday.