Corona breaks record again in Iran: 22,000 more infected; mutant virus becomes dominant
Amid a sharp increase in official statistics related to coronavirus in Iran, the spokesman of the National Coronavirus Headquarters announced the identification of approximately 12,000 patients infected with this strain of the virus, pointing to the dominance of the mutant virus in the country.
According to the Young Journalists Club, Ali Reza Raisi on Thursday, April 8, also said that based on the latest directives from the coronavirus headquarters, direct and indirect flights to 21 countries will be banned.
He did not mention the names of all these countries and only said that flights from Latin American and South African regions to the country are banned.
The reason for the flight ban from these countries is the possibility of transmitting a specific mutant virus from these regions.
However, according to Raisi, no cases of people infected with coronavirus originating from Brazil or South Africa have been reported in the country so far.
In the latest official statistics, Iran’s health ministry spokesman announced on Thursday the death of 185 new patients and the identification of more than 22,500 additional coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours.
Accordingly, the official statistics of COVID-19 patients in Iran reached 2 million, 6 thousand, and 934 people, and the total number of deaths reached 63 thousand and 884 people.
Iranian health ministry officials are releasing coronavirus infection and death statistics daily without providing breakdown data to the media, while there are serious doubts about the accuracy of these figures, and Iran’s Medical Organization has estimated the number of victims to be three to four times higher than official statistics.
Based on this report, the status of 257 red zones and 129 orange zones has been announced, and travel “from” and “to” these areas has been banned based on the decisions of the coronavirus prevention headquarters.
Simultaneously with the record-breaking number of coronavirus patients in the capital, some officials have warned about hospital beds filling up in Tehran in the coming days.
Nader Tavaloli, deputy head of the coronavirus disease headquarters in Tehran, announced on Thursday that the number of hospital beds in Tehran Province that can be made available to coronavirus patients is a maximum of 10,000.
However, according to him, more than half of this capacity has been filled in recent days.
Meanwhile, Farshad Allameh, deputy of Tehran University of Medical Sciences, also said that elective surgeries in state and private hospitals covered by this university have been suspended and beds and new sections have been allocated to coronavirus patients.
Following the end of the Nowruz holidays in the country, for several consecutive days, the number of coronavirus cases has been breaking its previous record.
In the last month of 1399 [March 2021] and in the days leading up to Nowruz, government officials did not create new obstacles to prevent citizens from traveling during Nowruz despite expert warnings, and only warned with requests and appeals that the situation after the Nowruz holidays depends on people’s behavior.
The deputy minister of health had predicted on Wednesday that the situation in Iran is so critical that it is not unlikely that we will witness 600 victims in a single day.
Source: Radio Farda
