As a plane landed at the Beirut airport on Saturday evening carrying 28,500 doses of Pfizer/BioNTech from Belgium, Minister of Health Hamad Hassan was present along with the Minister of Information, Manal Abdel Samad, and some officials to officially receive the vaccines.
Sided closely by the officials, with no social distancing, Hassan gave a speech to the media to commemorate the event.
During the speech, he started coughing, turned to Minister Abdel Samad, removed the face mask from his face, and proceeded to cough in the direction of the people at close proximity, notably Abdel Samad who wasn’t wearing a face mask.
Abdel Samad can be heard saying: “Oh, it’s the emotions,” with an awkward grin, which was evident since she was also breaking safety protocols with no social distancing and no face mask.
It is to note that this isn’t the first time the Health Minister breaks the preventive rules he himself has imposed on the population to halt the spread of the coronavirus.
As for the newly received vaccines, Lebanon has officially kicked off its national coronavirus vaccination campaign on Sunday morning. Now, more hospitals are beginning the process of administering the vaccine, with front-line health workers and elders mostly receiving it.
This is how the vaccination rollout in Lebanon looks like: photos.
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