The army was on Sunday staging patrols across Lebanon and using helicopters over many areas to ask citizens to stay home and respect a lockdown declared by the government over coronavirus.

Army helicopters hovered over Beirut, the Bekaa, Keserwan, Upper Metn and Aley, according to the National News Agency and other reports.

Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri has appealed to all citizens, “to the fathers, mothers and young men and women all over Lebanon, to stay at home and deal with home confinement as the only safety line" against coronavirus.

He said on Twitter: “The coronavirus epidemic is a treacherous enemy... I appeal to you to remain home and deal with home confinement as the only safety line."

In a quiet Lebanese town under lockdown over the novel coronavirus, a drone buzzed towards a balcony on Saturday to deliver a red rose to a mother grinning in surprise.

The COVID-19 pandemic may have put a damper on Mother's Day in Lebanon this year, but three students have come up with a new service to celebrate the occasion without flouting social distancing restrictions.

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.