Intensive care unit occupancy rate jumps to 90 per cent after authorities removed respite before the holidays.
Lebanese hospitals are overcoming coronavirus cases, doctors warn, while infection rates are rising after the end-of-year holidays.
The national action group COVID-19 was due to meet later Saturday and was scheduled to advise on a three-week lockout, said Petra Khoury, its head.
Lebanon, with a population of about six million, has recorded 183,888 cases of coronavirus, including 1,466 deaths, since February.
On Thursday, it hit a daily record of more than 3,500 new cases.
In what he described as a “catastrophic” situation, Sleiman Haroun, head of the syndicate of Private Hospitals, said “the 50 private hospitals in the country receiving patients with Covid-19 are now almost full”.
They have 850 beds in total, including 300 in intensive care units, Haroun said. “Patients are now waiting for the line… waiting for a bed to be free,” he told AFP news agency.
After tightening restrictions in November to counter the spread of the pandemic, the government laid down rules ahead of the December holidays by pushing back overnight curfews. to 3am and allows nightclubs and bars to reopen.
This move drew criticism from health professionals who warned that bed utilization in intensive care units was running very low.
“The problem is, once a patient gets into intensive care, they stay there for three weeks,” Khoury said.
The “gatherings and private parties” of the December holiday season have seen a dramatic increase in affairs, Khoury said.
“Over the past three weeks, the occupancy rate of intensive care units has gone up 10 percent,” pushing hospital bed occupancy in Beirut to more than 90 percent of capacity.
“We have been asked by several hospitals not to transfer patients to them,” Lebanese Red Cross president Georges Kettaneh told AFP.
Instead, the Red Cross took patients to Bekaa in the east or Nabatiyeh in the south.
Lebanon expects to receive its first batch of coronavirus vaccines in February from Pfizer-BioNTech.
The country has been battling the worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.
The Lebanese pound has lost more than two-thirds of its value against the dollar on the black market, leading prices to skyrocket.
More than half of the population is trapped in poverty, according to the United Nations.
Beirut was also hit by an explosion on August 4 at its port that killed more than 200 people and destroyed an oath of capital.