Hasan Says Woman Coming from China Quarantined 'at Her Request'

Health Minister Hamad Hasan announced Sunday that a Lebanese young woman who arrived from China in recent days has been quarantined at the Rafik Hariri state-run hospital “at her own request.”

The woman had appeared in a viral video in which she criticized the ministry’s precautionary measures at Beirut’s airport and said the country lacks test kits that can verify whether or not a person is carrying the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

“Thermal detection systems only diagnose the clinical state and the Ministry’s Prevention and Monitoring Department is following up on those who arrive from China at their homes where they are being quarantined. The testing and quarantine at the Rafik Hariri hospital are only available for confirmed cases exclusively!” Hasan tweeted.

“According to the directions of the World Health Organization, persons arriving from China and showing no symptoms are to be quarantined at their homes or remote places for two weeks, while quarantine (at hospitals) is to be implemented for persons showing disease symptoms or coming from the city of the outbreak,” the minister added.

He clarified that the ministry had been communicating with the young woman since her arrival in Lebanon.

“It sent a medical team to her house and it turned out that she was not showing symptoms of being infected with the coronavirus, contrary to what is being rumored,” the minister added.

“At her own request, she was quarantined at the Rafik Hariri hospital for the rest of the theoretical virus incubation period to assess her health situation,” Hasan went on to say.

MP Ibrahim Kanaan of Northern Metn meanwhile said that the ministry acted “at our request and at the request of the municipality and residents” despite “the absence of the coronavirus symptoms,” thanking the minister and the medical team.

On Wednesday, Hamad had announced that a male Lebanese student who arrived from China was being quarantined at the Rafik Hariri hospital despite being “in good health” and showing no symptoms of being infected.

The minister had recently announced that the Rafik Hariri hospital has the ability to quarantine up to four people infected or suspected of being infected with the coronavirus.

LBCI TV said the student had been evacuated from China aboard an Iranian plane that carried him to Damascus airport after which he was transferred in a Lebanese Red Cross ambulance to the hospital in Beirut.

The new coronavirus that emerged in central China at the end of last year has killed more than 800 people and spread around the world.

The latest figures from China show there are nearly 37,200 people infected in the country.

Outside mainland China, there have been more than 350 infections reported in nearly 30 other places. There have also been two deaths, one in the Philippines and the other in Hong Kong.