BEIRUT—It was a choice between containing a spiraling virus outbreak and resuscitating a dying economy in a country that has been in steady financial and economic meltdown over the past year. Authorities in Lebanon chose the latter.
Now, virus patients struggling to breathe wait outside hospitals—hoping for a bed or a even chair to open up. Ordinary people share contact lists of oxygen suppliers on social media as the critical gas becomes scarce, and the sound of ambulances ferrying the ill echoes through Beirut. Around 500 of Lebanon’s 14,000 doctors have left the crisis-ridden country in recent months, according to the Order of Physicians, putting a further strain on existing hospital staff.
