Owners of flower shops and farms on Sunday called on the authorities to allow reopening of their businesses BEIRUT: Lebanon on Sunday reported 26 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), raising the total to 928, with most of the new infections recorded in the northern town of Jdaidet Al-Qaitea. The town’s residents are said to have been ignoring COVID-19 regulations. A university medical team that visited the town found 17 people who tested positive for the virus. A doctor in the town of Halba who was on the team also contracted the virus, prompting the health authorities to run tests on the entire team and other contacts of the infected doctor. The authorities in Lebanon appear divided over the question of reopening markets on the eve of Eid Al-Fitr. Health Minister Hamad Hassan urged a gradual return to normal life. He said: “We cannot move from lockdown to normal life except through the transitional period that we are currently living in. During the last few weeks, we gained time and raised the readiness of government hospitals.” The closure of the forex market, banks and action against money changers on the black market resulted in a drop in the dollar exchange rate on Sunday from a high of more than LBP 4,200 in the past two weeks to between LBP 3,700 and 3,750. Owners of flower shops and farms on Sunday called on the authorities to allow reopening of their businesses. The president of the Syndicate of Flower and Seedlings Farmers, Elias Kamel, said that reopening of their business is similar to reopening food stores. We cannot move from lockdown to normal life except through the transitional period that we are currently living in. Hamad Hassan, Health minister Just as the Lebanese return to the cultivation of vegetables and fruits in villages and towns across the country, many people in Beirut and other cities have transformed their balconies and roofs into small vegetable plots to grow radishes, mint, tomatoes, thyme and even citrus trees. A university professor said: “I brought the first planting basin to the roof, then more basins were rolled in and I bought more seeds. On one hand, we save (some money), and on the other, we eat vegetables that I can trust.” The Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai warned during Sunday mass “of unemployment and poverty that have aggravated dramatically, and the skyrocketing prices of food items, while the purchasing value of the pound is on a terrible decline, so that care for agriculture has become a primary need.” Al-Rai announced that “the Church is putting its lands and capabilities at the disposal of society, with its associations and cooperatives, to invest these lands agriculturally, and to secure food, especially since Lebanon depends on importing 70 percent of its food needs.” He announced training courses for young people to invest in lands they own and use their balconies if they do not own land.