Iran Daily Virus Deaths Hit Record High

EghtesadOnline: Iran registered a record daily rise in coronavirus deaths on Tuesday with an unprecedented 229 that took the national death toll to 14,600, health officials said.

News ID: ۷۵۰۴۹۵

22 July 2020

This is the second time in two weeks that Iran breaks its previous all-time record. On Tuesday, Iran ranked second in overnight fatalities from the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide, falling behind only Mexico with 301 deaths.

The country’s tally of cases rose by 2,625, nearly 2,000 of whom had developed severe symptoms to require hospitalization, Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman of Health Ministry, was quoted as saying by ISNA.

The freshly confirmed cases took the caseload to 278,827.

Heath Ministry’s tally indicates that over the past 10 days, 99 Iranians contracted the deadly virus and eight to nine lost their lives every hour.

Over 3,589 remain in critical condition in intensive care units and 242,000 have either fully recovered or were healthy enough to be discharged from hospitals.

To track down infections, Iran has carried out 2.2 million PCR tests designed to detect the viral infection in samples taken from a person’s nose or throat.

Over 14.8 million across the world have caught the infectious disease and 614,000 have died.

Coronavirus Hotspots

After a few days of decline in provinces placed in “red” or “yellow” zone, Lari announced on Tuesday that once again 25 of the nation’s 31 provinces are either in a state of emergency or have registered alarming infection figures.

To deploy its targeted lockdown plan, Iran classified its provinces into three zones based on transmission rates, with “red” and “white” at the two ends of the spectrum.

Most “red” provinces are located in northern and western parts of Iran, except Khorasan Razavi, Fars and Kerman, showing that southern regions hit hardest by a second wave of infections finally got some breathing room.

On the declining numbers in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, which as of Tuesday was still marked “red”, the head of Abadan’s University of Medical Sciences said mask wearing has proven extremely effective.

Another local health official also said that the downtrend in the past five days suggests Khuzestan could shed its “red” status in the coming days.

The oil-producing province has been in a state of emergency for over two months.

“To change the ‘red’ state, the number of hospitalizations per 100,000 should be less than three for a span of 14 days,” Farhad Abolnejadian, the head of Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in Ahvaz said.

Both physicians were hopeful that, with public cooperation, the disaster-stricken region can reclaim its “white” state.

According to Lari, at least 13 provinces are “yellow”, or in an alarming state, as hospitalizations and deaths continue to mount there.