Lebanon registered 14 new coronavirus-related deaths and 2,136 cases on Friday, the health ministry announced in its daily report.

Among the newly recorded cases, 26 cases were from travelers arriving in Lebanon, bringing the total number of cases since Feb. 21 to 168,069. The total number of deaths now stands at 1,367.

The Health Ministry said 1,070 patients were in hospital, with 421 in the ICU and 140 on mechanical ventilation.

A total of 15,655 PCR tests have been administered in the last 24 hours. The positivity rate of the tests in the last two weeks stood at 13.4 percent.

Lebanon has detected on Friday its first case of the new variant of the coronavirus, which has been spreading rapidly in parts of Britain, on a flight arriving from London.

In a tweet, caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hasan announced that a new variant of the Coronavirus was discovered on board a Middle East Airlines plane coming from the United Kingdom.

“The detection of the first case of the new variant of Covid-19 on Middle East Airlines flight 202 coming from London on Dec. 21,” the minister said.

Source: Al-Manar English Website