Covid Hospitalizations, Mortalities Expected to Rise 

Following the surge in daily Covid infections over the New Year Holidays, the number of hospitalized patients and fatalities are expected to follow suit in the next two weeks, an official with the Health Ministry’s Center for Infectious Disease Control, Babak Eshrati, stated on Monday. 
“Evidence indicates that the upward trend will continue until late April,” Eshrati was quoted as saying by ISNA. 
As projected by epidemiologists, the eighth wave of the coronavirus pandemic started to peak during the New Year Holidays known as Norouz, with daily cases crossing past the 1,000 mark for the first time in months. 
“The majority of hospitalized patients infected with Covid are the elderly, individuals with pre-existing health conditions and those who’ve refused to get booster shots,” Eshrati stated. 
He once again encouraged the public to administer booster doses as soon as possible and to self-isolate for at least five days if they develop symptoms such as coughs, runny nose, fever or a sore throat. 
During the last two previous New Year Holidays, many Iranians refrained from traveling and holding family gatherings to stem the spread of the coronavirus. This year, millions of Iranians, ensured by widespread vaccination, traveled domestically and internationally to make up for earlier years. 
Many have also dismissed Covid safety measures. A report by the Health Ministry released on Monday showed that only 32.6% had adhered to health protocols in the week ending in March 25. 
Only 16.6% of employees and customers covered their faces with masks between March 8-22. Safety measures were respected in airports the most (61.5%) and the least in shopping malls (11.3%).

Daily Update

The Health Ministry on Monday logged 713 new coronavirus infections, more than 400 of whom had developed severe enough symptoms to require hospitalization. 
Monday’s tally took the total number of cases since the start of the outbreak to 7.59 million. 
On the same day, 18 patients lost their lives to the dangerous virus, pushing the national toll to 145,409. 
According to the ministry’s weekly update, 19 cities across the country have been color-coded as ‘red’, highly dangerous areas in terms of coronavirus transmissions. 
The number of dangerous ‘orange’ cities has dropped by three to 45, ‘yellow’ cities surged from 194 to 233 and safe ‘blue’ areas saw a dramatic decline from 193 to 151.