President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday announced that starting Wednesday, his administration will impose restrictions on 25 of Iran’s 31 provincial capitals for 10 days until Nov. 13, president.ir reported.
The restrictions close down only category three and four businesses, which according to the president, “mostly involve educational activities and public gatherings”.
But in 89 counties across the country, the National Coronavirus Taskforce has decided to close down all non-essential businesses, including category two places of business.
“Last week, 43 counties were in a critical situation and under restrictions applied to category two, three and four jobs,” the taskforce’s spokesman, Alireza Raeisi, said, “those restrictions have been extended for another week”.
During the taskforce’s Saturday meeting, the stringent restrictions were extended to 46 new counties with high virus transmission rates, making a total of 89 counties that only allow essential businesses to open for a one-week period.
Updating the pandemic’s status, Raeisi said, “Infections and deaths show an upward trend, hence health protocols must be taken seriously.”
Rouhani also underlined the significance of safety guidelines in warding off the outbreak by saying, “We cannot just depend on the fact that our society has discipline and feels responsible; authorities should enforce protocols.”
Iran has mandated wearing facemasks and banned travel during holidays, but the laws have not been executed strictly.
Data compiled by the Health Ministry indicate that over the past 10 days, 15 were killed by the contagion every hour and 281 were infected.
The data also show that 183 recovered from the disease every hour.
“Some 7,820 tested positive for Covid-19 in the past 24 hours, nearly one-third of whom required hospitalization, taking the national tally to over 612,700,” the spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, was quoted as saying by ISNA.
Lari said fatalities from the viral infections reached 34,864 on Saturday, up by 386 daily deaths.
The third wave of the disease has increased cases and fatalities to unprecedented numbers in Iran, with both tallies setting new records multiple times over the past two weeks, as infections topped the 8,000 mark and deaths rose past 400.
The Health Ministry is planning to raise daily coronavirus tests from 25,000 to 40,000 in the hope of containing the illness through early detection and isolation of patients.
“Iran has administered 4.92 million PCR tests since the pandemic was spotted in one of its central cities. A total of 482,000 have recovered from the respiratory illness and 5,185 are in critical condition,” Lari said.
The number of coronavirus infections around the globe topped 46 million, as fatalities rose to 1.19 million.