The report confirmed a fourth recorded death of a man in his 90s who had already been suffering from chronic diseases.
by Perla Kantarjian -Source: Annahar
The Lebanese Health Ministry staff wait for passengers to be screened for the coronavirus at the airport in Beirut. (AP Photo)
BEIRUT: 133 people are now infected with the novel coronavirus in Lebanon while four people have died, the Ministry of Health announced Wednesday.
In the wake of the outbreak, China has extended a helping hand to the small Mediterranean country, offering it 1000 PCR kits and 200 thermometers.
The donation is an expression of China’s “friendly feelings towards Lebanon and its people,” a statement released by the embassy said.
The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide has surpassed 2000,000 with 8,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Over 80,000 coronavirus patients, meanwhile, have also recovered from the disease.
On Wednesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) urged MENA countries to offer more information about their coronavirus cases to help boost the fight against the disease across the region.
This comes at the heels of scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) conducting a study to decipher the durability of the virus’ contagiousness on a variety of everyday surfaces.
The tests revealed that when someone coughs or sneezes, the virus carried by the released droplets remains viable, or infectious, in aerosols for at least three hours.
On plastic and stainless steel, the virus could be detected after three days. On cardboard, the virus was no longer viable after 24 hours. On copper, the virus became inactivated after four hours.
If not in an aerosol droplet, the research team discovered that it takes about 66 minutes for half the virus particles to lose function, which means that after another hour and six minutes, three-quarters of the virus particles will be inactive, but 25% will still be active.
According to another research led by Neeltje van Doremalen of the NIAID’s Montana facility at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, COVID-19’s survival time is shortest on copper, where half the virus became inactive within 46 minutes, while on cardboard, the half-life was about three and a half hours.
Researchers stated that those results depend on a number of “variables,” urging caution when interpreting the numbers.