Photos: Lebanon launches countrywide shutdown to combat coronavirus

People walk on a highway that is almost empty of cars, east Beirut. | Lebanon declared a medical state of emergency on Sunday, announcing a sweeping shutdown that included the closure of its airport and most public institutions and private companies as it looks to rein in coronavirus.

Information Minister Manal Abdel Samad said Lebanon's borders, ports, and airport would shut from March 18-29 and Lebanese were obliged to remain at home except for matters of "extreme necessity". | Above: One of the biggest malls in Lebanon which has closed its shops at Hazmiyeh area east of Beirut.

Lebanon has been boosting precautionary measures including halting flights from several countries, closing all restaurants and nightclubs and tightening measures along the border with neighboring Syria. | Above: A municipality worker disinfects a neighbourhood in Beirut's southern suburb of Chiyah.

Schools, universities, coffee shops, bars and other public places have been ordered shut, and the authorities suspended prayers until further notice. But public concern remains high amid fears that the country is ill-equipped to face a mass outbreak. | Above: An empty view of Beirut's seaside Corniche.

An ambulance of the Lebanese Red Cross leaves the emergency building of the government-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital, where most of the Lebanese coronavirus cases are treated, in Beirut.

Health officials have warned that any wider outbreak could severely strain Lebanon's strapped medical resources after a month-long dollar shortage that has depleted supplies at hospitals, putting its population at high risk. | Above: Lebanese intelligence officers, foreground, order people to leave the corniche, along the Mediterranean Sea, in Beirut.

In a bid to reduce potential exposure, security forces were dispatched to Beirut's seaside corniche to disperse crowds who had come to enjoy one of the city's few public spaces. | Above: Municipal policemen, left, order street vendors to leave the corniche, in Beirut.

The new measures will also shut Lebanon's banks until March 29. | Above: An aerial view shows the waterfront promenade along the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut being mostly empty.

A combination picture shows people walking at Beirut's seaside Corniche March 15, 2020, and the corniche seen empty after Lebanon declared a medical state of emergency in Beirut, March 15, 2020.

A combination picture shows men gathered at a beach in Beirut March 12, 2020, and the gathering place seen empty after Lebanon declared a medical state of emergency, in Beirut, on March 15, 2020.

A member of Lebanese security checks a visitor's temperature at the entrance of the governmental Serail in the southern city of Saida.

A volunteer sanitises a church in Sidon.

A group, in wedding attire, attends a photo session as workers performing street sanitising in Saifi village, Beirut.

A volunteer sanitizes a mosque in Sidon.

A man walks behind a placard hangs at a restaurant in Arabic that reads: "Because of the prevailing health conditions in the country," on Hamra street in Beiru.

Members of the Lebanese Civil Defence spray disinfectant in a street in Baalbek in the eastern Bekaa Valley.

A Syrian refugee woman puts a face mask on a boy in al-Wazzani area, in southern Lebanon.

Volunteers with the Disaster Management Unit disinfect a currency exchange shop in Lebanon's southern city of Saida.

Workers produce protective clothing at a textile factory in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.

Members of the Lebanese civil defence froces spray disinfectant at the historic site of Baalbek's Roman ruins in the ancient Lebanese city of the same name, in the eastern Bekaa Valley.