Daily Covid Fatalities Reach 32 

Iran’s daily tally of coronavirus-related deaths continued its gradual rise on Thursday, with 32 patients dying from the disease as the recent spike in infection rates and hospitalizations started to leave its effect on fatalities. 
According to the Health Ministry’s daily report, Thursday’s deaths took the national toll to 145,498, ISNA reported. 
Daily cases and hospitalization rates have been on the rise for the past few months. On Thursday, as many as 1,010 patients tested positive for Covid, bringing the total number of cases to 7.596 million. 
A member of the national science committee against Covid-19, Minou Mohrez, in an interview with IRNA, linked the surge to widespread disregard for face masks and social distancing. 
“We’re at the peak of the eighth wave of the outbreak and the number of cities coded as ‘red’ are increasing,” Mohrez added. 
The Health Ministry for consecutive weeks had registered zero cities color-coded as “red”, or extremely dangerous in terms of transmission rates. 
Over the past month, it has been slowly logging a rise. This Saturday, the ministry reported 19 red, 45 orange and 233 yellow cities.