BEIRUT — Lebanon has registered 1,399 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours as the country sees rising numbers of infections for several weeks now, according to the daily report published on Wednesday by the Ministry of Health.
Here’s what we know:
• The rate of positive tests for the last seven days is 14.6 percent, a sharp increase after remaining stable for several months, at around 5 percent. Among the positive cases, 57 are currently hospitalized, which corresponds to an occupancy rate of 13 percent of the units dedicated to patients suffering from COVID-19. Some 19 patients are in intensive care, which corresponds to 11 percent occupancy of the available places.
• Caretaker Health Minister Firas Abiad had said last Monday that a new wave of coronavirus would be an overload for hospitals. The minister had added that the upsurge in cases was due to the rapid spread of two highly contagious variants.
• Since the outbreak of the virus in Lebanon in Feb. 2020, 1,110,822 positive cases have been reported, while 10,465 people have died of COVID-19.
• As for vaccination, it remains slow, with barely 45 percent of the population having received at least two doses of the vaccine.