Iran’s daily death toll driven by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus continued to climb on Sunday with fatalities reaching 242, the highest overnight record since September.
Sunday’s toll was up by 26%, compared to a day earlier, taking the national number of mortalities to over 135,000, ISNA reported.
Daily deaths crossed past the 200 mark for the first time in the past 129 days, data collected by the Health Ministry showed.
The highly contagious variant is targeting children far more than previous waves. Iran has extended vaccine eligibility to kids over the age of five to curb infections and hospitalizations among them.
Omicron has placed 337 cities across the country on red alert and 64 cities have been color-coded as orange, or high-risk, in the past month.
Omicron sparked global fear in late November when the World Health Organization announced it contains 50 mutations that make the strain transmit easily from one person to another.
The variant was first detected in Tehran in the final days of December in a middle-aged man with recent travel history to the United Arab Emirates.
The government has authorized booster shots to produce more immunity in the population.
