Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hasan on Monday called for a total lockdown of four weeks with severe measures as Lebanon is facing a dangerous increase in coronavirus cases.

"The partial closure did not yield the desired results and there are developments in terms of the number of infections which are considered as dangerous and unbearable,” Hassan said, stressing that the country has entered a new phase with the pandemic which requires a different approach than the previous stages.

Hassan warned that the number of coronavirus cases have reached a dangerous period that hospitals can no longer bear, namely that the number of hospital beds are barely keeping up with the surge of coronavirus patients.

“Recording 1,500 or 1,700 infections per day means that the number must be multiplied five times, meaning that we have 10,000 cases per day with many people who are asymptomatic,” he added, praising the measures taken by the Education Ministry in a bid to suspend schools in the areas that are being closed weekly.