Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Sunday called on the Army Command and the rest of security forces to take strict measures to ensure citizens are staying in their homes unless it is extremely necessary, following major breaches of the government’s “general mobilization” order over the past days.

“The plans include staging patrols and erecting checkpoints on roads to enforce commitment to the taken measures,” Diab said in an address to the nation dedicated to the coronavirus crisis.

Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Saturday said Lebanon "could lose control" over the spread of COVID-19 virus if a state of emergency is not declared in light of a “quick” rise in the number of cases.

MP Assem Araji of the Parliamentary Health Committee called on the government on Saturday to declare a state of emergency over coronavirus because the "Lebanese are not abiding by the terms of home quarantine."

The Health Ministry said in its daily report on Saturday that 24 new people have contracted the new COVID-19 virus raising the number of total infected to 206.

Head of the Syndicate of Private Hospitals in Lebanon Sleiman Haroun said the time factor is very important in fighting the spread of coronavirus as he urged Lebanese citizens to stay at home.

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday stressed that his party had no knowledge of any Lebanese-American deal to release former Khiyam Prison warden Amer Fakhoury from prison.

“We have no knowledge of a deal to release Amer Fakhoury and what we know is that there was no deal,” Nasrallah said in a televised address.

A senior U.S. official said Friday that there was no deal made to secure Amer Fakhoury's release from Lebanese prisons.

Speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, the official ruled out the possibility that a promise was made to send aid or to release Lebanese prisoners held in the U.S.

President Michel Aoun on Friday reiterated his call for citizens to stay home and abide by the two-week lockdown declared by the government in the face of the coronavirus crisis.

“As we witness how the coronavirus pandemic is killing people around the world, I reiterate my call for the Lebanese on the need to stay home and not go out unless necessary,” Aoun tweeted.

Heavy traffic and pedestrian movement was witnessed Friday in some impoverished areas of the northern city of Tripoli despite the government’s lockdown order over the coronavirus crisis, state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said the popular souks in Mahram, Bab al-Tabbaneh, al-Qobbeh and Abi Samra were bustling with people as street vendors spread their chariots and some citizens gathered around coffee kiosks.

Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Friday stressed that “the crime of collaboration with the Israeli enemy cannot be forgotten,” a day after former Khiyam Prison warden Amer Fakhoury arrived in the U.S. after spending around five months in Lebanese prisons.

“Heaven’s justice won’t drop the rights of martyrs and liberated captives due to ‘passage of time,’” Diab tweeted, criticizing Fakhoury’s controversial release.