The first two waves of the novel coronavirus have so far claimed the lives of over 21,000 people during the six months of its outbreak across Iran, a health official announced.
The daily count of Covid-19 deaths dropped to 119 on Wednesday, bringing the national toll to 21,020, the spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, was quoted as saying by ISNA.
“Some 2,240 were diagnosed with Covid-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, within a 24-hour period, taking Iran’s caseload to 365,606,” Lari said.
Alireza Zali, the head of the coronavirus taskforce in the capital Tehran, warned about the possibility of yet another peak of the infectious disease if the general public decide to take non-essential trips during the upcoming holidays.
According to the health official, the pattern of the disease in Tehran indicates that a significant number of travels correlates with a sharp rise in hospitalizations and deaths “with a two- to three-week delay.”
Over the past 10 days, the respiratory illness has infected 93 people every hour and killed five to six. Some 70 have also recovered per hour.
Nearly 350,000 infected patients have recovered from the deadly virus and 3,830 are hospitalized in intensive care units.
Iran has administered 3.1 million tests to identify infections in individuals.
Over 24 million worldwide have tested positive for Covid-19 and 825,000 lost their lives.
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