Lockdown is over but Beirut retailers fear for their future

  • Date: 02-Dec-2020
  • Source: Arabian Business
  • Sector:Retail
  • Country:Lebanon
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Lockdown is over but Beirut retailers fear for their future

Three days have passed since the lifting of the general lockdown in Lebanon, but retailers have yet to see the return of shoppers, according to shop owners in Beirut surveyed by Arabian Business.

Businesses strongly opposed the latest lockdown which lasted for two weeks in a bid to curb the spread of coronavirus as they felt that the restrictive measures would eliminate what remained of their resilience in the face of successive crises that have struck Lebanon over the past year.

Retailers bracing themselves for more disappointment amid economic turmoil and ongoing coronavirus lockdown restrictions

And it appears the measures have failed to contain the spread of Covid-19, with caretaker health minister, Hamad Hassan, admitting that restrictions were only 70 percent respected.

Figures compiled by Arabian Business during the two-week lockdown showed that infections continued to spike at the same rates registered before the lockdown.

The country registered 24,296 new coronavirus cases for a total of 126,903, an increase of 24 percent, and 235 new deaths for a total of 1,004, an increase of 30.5 percent, between November 14-30.

Most of the shop owners in downtown Beirut and Achrafieh, interviewed by Arabian Business, said the lockdown had been in vain.

While traffic levels in Beirut would suggest