Libya’s National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) announced an increase of 13 new Coronavirus cases as well as 7 new recoveries. This brings Libya’s total cases to 467 and recoveries to 70.

5 new deaths were also reported over the weekend in the southern city of Sebha, bringing the country’s deaths to 10.

The new cases are spread across south Libya, and include cases that had mixed with old cases and new cases.

The NCDC blames the new spike on complacency and mistrust by the Libyan public. In the beginning of June, when it looked as if the spread of the virus was petering out, many Libyans started socialising and stopped social distancing.

The NCDC criticised the doubts aired by the sceptical Libyan public about the existence of Coronavirus or the degree of its spread. Equally, the mixed messages interpreted by the Libyan public of results of the Coronavirus test analyses led to the public questioning these results and a lack of adherence to quarantine, health guidelines, and adherence to curfews and social spacing.

This reached such an extent that the NCDC called on the security authorities and the Attorney General’s Office to query all those who question the NCDC’s laboratory results. It explained the confusion over what seem as contradictory lab results to the fact that some people have strong immune systems that can show that they are infected yet when they are re-tested after 24 hours they can show that they are free of infection.