  We conducted a drift-scan observation campaign using the 305-m Arecibo
telescope in January and March 2020 when the observatory was temporarily closed
during the intense earthquakes and the initial outbreak of the COVID-19
pandemic, respectively. The primary objective of the survey was to search for
fast radio transients, including Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) and Rotating Radio
Transients (RRATs). We used the 7-beam ALFA receiver to observe different
sections of the sky within the declination region $\sim$(10$-$20) deg on 23
nights and collected 160 hours of data in total. We searched our data for
single-pulse transients, covering up to a maximum dispersion measure of 11 000
pc cm$^{-3}$ at which the dispersion delay across the entire bandwidth is equal
to the 13 s transit length of our observations. The analysis produced more than
18 million candidates. Machine learning techniques sorted the radio frequency
interference and possibly astrophysical candidates, allowing us to visually
inspect and confirm the candidate transients. We found no evidence for new
astrophysical transients in our data. We also searched for emission from
repeated transient signals, but found no evidence for such sources. We detected
single pulses from two known pulsars in our observations and their measured
flux densities are consistent with the expected values. Based on our
observations and sensitivity, we estimated the upper limit for the FRB rate to
be $<$2.8$\times10^5$ sky$^{-1}$ day$^{-1}$ above a fluence of 0.16 Jy ms at
1.4 GHz, which is consistent with the rates from other telescopes and surveys.
