Iran Tightens Restrictions on Movement, Non-Essential Businesses Amid Surge in Coronavirus

EghtesadOnline: Iran’s National Coronavirus Taskforce on Saturday began to impose strict travel restrictions and closed down non-essential businesses as part of efforts to stem the disease.

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22 November 2020

As per the plan, travel to and from red cities is banned for two weeks, a night curfew has been placed on movement from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. and non-essential occupations have closed.

On the first day of the implementation of localized and stricter lockdown disciplines across the country, President Hassan Rouhani during the meeting of the National Coronavirus Taskforce called on the public and authorities to observe and enforce the new measures.

“If everyone follows the protocols, the shutdowns could end in ten days. If not, transmission rates might not reach adequate levels in two weeks,” the top official said, noting that the lockdown could extend beyond 14 days.

Iran logged 431 fatalities due to the coronavirus pandemic on Saturday and 12,930 newly confirmed cases as a third wave of infections continued to overwhelm hospitals.

Saturday’s tally of infections, 16% of whom required hospitalization, took the national total to 841,000, the spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, was quoted as saying by ISNA.

“The new deaths took the national toll to 44,327,” she added.

Over 596,000 have recovered from the respiratory illness and 5,778 are in critical condition, Lari said.

“Iran has performed 5.74 million PCR tests in the past nine months,” she said.

Global Covid-19 cases topped 58 million on Saturday and fatalities reached 1.37 million.