A second infection with the novel coronavirus was confirmed Wednesday in Lebanon, the Health Ministry said.

“The second case is epidemiologically linked to the first case. She was on a seven-day religious trip to Iran and returned to Lebanon on Feb. 20, 2020 on the same plane that carried the first infected person,” a Health Ministry statement said.

President Michel Aoun announced Wednesday that the launch of offshore oil drilling in Lebanon will “positively affect the national economy and limit the negative repercussions it is facing.”

Aoun was speaking during a meeting in Baabda with Energy Minister Raymond Ghajar, Lebanese Petroleum Administration chief Walid Nasr and a delegation from French oil giant Total.

U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Elizabeth Richard said in her farewell remarks on Wednesday after meeting President Michel Aoun that Lebanon is at a “turning point and is capable of making a change.”

Lebanese protesters on Wednesday rallied outside the health ministry premises demanding a halt to flights from countries infected with the deadly coronavirus that caused 28,000 deaths globally according to WHO.

Hizbullah deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said his party rejects allowing the International Monetary Fund to manage the financial crisis in Lebanon, indicating rejection of any IMF loan that would impose harsh conditions on heavily indebted country.

A new list of US sanctions against Hizbullah may also target a former Lebanese minister and ally of Hizbullah, Nidaa al-Watan daily reported on Wednesday.

The Cabinet on Tuesday decided to restrict travel to countries witnessing major coronavirus outbreaks and to order a halt to pilgrimage trips, Information Minister Manal Abdul Samad said.

Asked why flights to badly hit nations have not been completely suspended, Abdul Samad told reporters after a Cabinet session that the “the Health Ministry is keen on implementing the recommendations of the World Health Organization.”

The Rafik Hariri University Hospital announced Tuesday that 32 people underwent examinations for the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours and that seven of them were quarantined at the hospital while the others were asked to isolate themselves at their homes.

“Lab tests were conducted for 18 cases and they tested negative,” the hospital added in its daily statement.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Tuesday lashed out at a French journalist who has published a report claiming that he has cancer, describing the allegations as “totally baseless.”

“Last week, I appeared at least three times through the media and I had an interview with more than 30 journalists, so how can the report about my treatment in France for three days be true?” Geagea said at a press conference dedicated to refuting the claims of the journalist, Richard Labévière.

Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri on Tuesday mourned late Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak as a “loyal friend of Lebanon.”

“With the death of president Hosni Mubarak, we turn the page on an epoch of the history of Egypt and the Arab nation, which was rife with both achievements and failures and carried landmarks in development and modernity in all fields,” Hariri tweeted.