Impact of Covid-19 Measures on Tehran Explained

EghtesadOnline: The recent lockdown measures adopted in the capital has thinned out the city’s overcrowded public transit, the head of Tehran’s Coronavirus Taskforce said.

News ID: ۷۵۱۵۸۱

26 November 2020

“The number of passengers has dropped by 300,000 per day on average,” Alireza Zali was also quoted as saying by IRNA on Wednesday.

“The city’s buses have also seen 350,000 to 450,000 fewer daily commuters after stringent new measures were imposed since Saturday.”

According to the health official, patients confirmed to have contracted SARS-CoV-2 are breaking self-isolation rules and “as many as 150 infected patients have gone to the airport to travel to other provinces”.

“Only in the province of Tehran, 92 patients died on Tuesday,” Zali said, noting that the health protocols have so far had little impact on hospitalizations or deaths.

He urged the public to follow mitigation guidelines and said, “Violation of the quarantine will render all the restrictions useless.”

The government has closed down non-essential businesses, enforced travel restrictions and placed a curfew in cities hit hardest by the infectious disease to contain the outbreak.

“The daily tally of coronavirus cases in Iran set a new record on Wednesday with 13,800 cases, pushing the national total to the brink of 900,000,” the spokeswoman of Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, was quoted as saying by IRNA.

Overnight deaths reached 469 on Wednesday, taking the total number past 46,200, she added.

The spokeswoman said more than 625,000 patients have recovered their health in the past nine months and 5,832 remain in critical condition.

“Equipped laboratories across the country have administered 5.9 million diagnostic tests since the virus was first spotted in the holy city of Qom in central Iran,” she said.

Worldwide coronavirus cases crossed the 60 million mark on Wednesday and the death toll reached 1.4 million.