Fahmi Ends Nighttime Curfew as 10 Virus Cases Recorded
Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi on Wednesday issued a memo lifting a months-long nighttime curfew and allowing businesses to open beyond midnight.
The curfew, which had been imposed as part of the government’s measures in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, had obliged businesses such as restaurants, cafes, pubs, nightclubs and grocery stores to close by midnight. It had initially been enforced from 7pm till 5am before eventually being relaxed in a gradual manner.
Media reports said the move aims at encouraging tourism with the reopening of the airport and the visits of some expats to their home country.
The memo, which says “all public and private institutions can operate during the working hours specified by them,” effectively ends all the measures that remained from a nationwide lockdown that Lebanon imposed on March 15 to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The Health Ministry meanwhile announced that nine residents and an expat repatriated from Nigeria tested positive for coronavirus over the past 24 hours, taking the country’s tally to 1,788 -- among them 34 deaths and 1,223 recoveries.
The repatriated expat hails from the southern town of al-Zrariyeh while the local cases were recorded in Beirut’s Ras al-Nabaa, the Beirut suburbs of Ain el-Rummaneh, Bourj al-Barajneh, Haret Hreik, Ouzai, al-Mreijeh and Fanar, and the northern district of Zgharta.
Source: Naharnet
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