Rafic Hariri University Hospital preparedness sharing initial experience on COVID-19. (Special Issue: COVID-19 pandemic.)

Background: The first cases of novel coronavirus (2019-ncov) infected patients occurred in Lebanon in February 2020 and March 2020. Rafic Hariri University Hospital was the first hospital in Lebanon that rapidly responded to this crisis through the effective use of scarce resources and the swift arrangement of departments as part of the contingency plan. It was able to mitigate the impact of the first COVID-19 wave in Lebanon through active management and proper preparedness. We analyzed data on the first 63 confirmed cases of COVID-19 to determine their epidemiological and clinical characteristics.