BEIRUT (AP) Death stalks the corridors of Beirut s Rafik Hariri University Hospital, where losing multiple patients in one day to COVID-19 has become the new normal. On Friday, the mood among the staff was even more solemn as a young woman lost the battle with the virus.
There was silence as the woman, barely in her 30s, drew her last breath. Then a brief commotion. The nurses frantically tried to resuscitate her. Finally, exhausted, they silently removed the oxygen mask and the tubes and covered the body with a brown blanket.
The woman, whose name is being withheld for privacy reasons, is one of 57 victims who died on Friday and more than 2,150 lost to the virus so far in Lebanon, a small country with a population of nearly 6 million that since last year has grappled with the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history.
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Top Lebanese hospitals fight exhausting battle against virus
Lebanon s hospitals are on the brink: Unable to keep up with coronavirus patients, they have run out of beds, oxygen tanks, ventilators and medical staff
By FAY ABUELGASIM Associated Press
January 23, 2021, 8:34 AM
• 5 min read
The Associated Press
A medical staffer looks at a COVID-19 patient at the intensive care unit of the Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. Hospitals in Lebanon are reaching full capacity amid a dramatic surge in coronavirus cases across the crisis-hit Mediterranean nation even amid strict lockdown. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)