Officials Call for Full Lockdown as Covid Cases, Deaths Break Records

Both coronavirus infections and deaths set new records in Iran on Wednesday, with cases soaring past 11,500, following which members of the National Coronavirus Taskforce said nothing short of a full lockdown will slow the outbreak.
Daily Covid-19 infections surged to 11,780 on Wednesday, up by 1,400 a day earlier, pushing the tally of cases to 715,000, the spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, was quoted as saying by ISNA.
Overnight deaths also saw an uptick, increasing the previous record by three to 462 and pushing the national toll to over 39,660, she added. 
Two members of the National Coronavirus Taskforce pointed out that half measures will no longer help reduce the influx of patients visiting hospitals and asked for a countrywide quarantine.
Noting that the closure of non-essential businesses from 6 p.m. will have some effects, Masoud Mardani said, “But the spike in cases tells us that conservative responses are no longer helpful.”
Minou Mohraz, another taskforce member, said a full lockdown is essential for “at least” one week. 
“The situation with the coronavirus epidemic is very distressing. Shuttering non-essential businesses after 6 p.m. will not suffice,” she said.
The government has closed down non-essential businesses in all 31 provincial capitals from 6 p.m. until the next morning for one month to tackle the pandemic. 
Mohraz noted that it is her professional opinion as well as that of many experts and heads of medical universities across the country that “a quarantine period of two weeks, or at least one week, be imposed in Tehran and most of the cities around Iran, which are facing similar circumstances”. 
More than 536,000 have recovered from the infectious disease and a record high of 5,600 patients are in critical condition. 
Iran has carried out over 5.34 million diagnostic tests in the past nine months. 
Worldwide coronavirus infections jumped to 51.9 million on Wednesday, as deaths reached 1.28 million.