Covid Toll Drops Below 200

Following seven consecutive days of over 200 Covid-related mortalities, the Health Ministry registered a relative decline in daily deaths on Thursday.
The overnight toll fell to 172 and on Friday to 150 as the sixth wave of the pandemic, fueled by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, subsided, IRNA reported. 
The ministry has reported a sharp fall in infection rates over the last two weeks with Health Minister Bahram Einollahi announcing that Iran has passed the peak of the sixth wave. 
Daily Covid cases reached 40,000 in early February before decreasing to under 10,000 once again in recent days.  
Some 184 cities are still on red alert despite the containment of the new wave. During the recent peak of the virus, over 300 cities were placed on red alert. 
Most Iranians have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine in the past six months. Over the past 24 hours, 325,000 more jabs were administered. 
More than 63 million Iranians out of a population of 85 million people have gotten the first dose and 55 million have gotten both shots. 
Some 23.6 million have also received a third booster dose to further build immunity against the infectious disease that has killed six million people globally.