The Cabinet is set to meet next week to take stringent preventive measures in a bid to stem a frightening surge in the coronavirus infections as daily tally was exceeding 100.

168 new COVID-19 cases and four more deaths were recorded over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Sunday evening.

The new cases raise the country’s overall tally since February 21 to 3,746 while the fatalities take the death toll to 51. 152 of the new cases were among residents and 16 among expats.

The number of recoveries has meanwhile reached 1,692.

137 patients were meanwhile hospitalized for coronavirus over the past 24 hours, including 34 who were admitted into intensive care units.

In the same context, seventeen medics from the Zahle department of the Lebanese Red Cross have tested positive for COVID-19, the organization said on Sunday.

The Red Cross said virus tests were carried out for all of the department’s medics after one of them tested positive.

The medic likely contracted the virus after transporting his cousin to hospital in a civilian car following a gas cylinder explosion at a house in Zahle’s al-Karak area on July 21, the Red Cross said in a statement.

Health Minister Hamad Hasan has warned that the coronavirus pandemic has reached a “dangerous juncture” in Lebanon.

Over the past two weeks, the daily infection rate has risen, with dozens of new cases announced each day. As a result, Lebanon’s government-linked anti-coronavirus committee has recommended a one-week closure of public areas and places.