Iran reports its highest single-day death toll from COVID-19 this year, bringing the country’s total deaths in the pandemic to nearly 64,500, state TV reported.
The report says 258 new deaths were recorded in 24 hours. Iran’s deadliest day of the pandemic was in mid-November, when more than 480 deaths were tallied.
Today’s news report says health care officials also confirmed 21,063 new coronavirus cases since the day before, bringing Iran’s total confirmed cases to more than 2,070,000.
“We are expecting a heavy rise in hospitalizations in the next week,” Health Minister Saeed Namaki warns. He blamed the increase in cases on shopping, family gatherings and travel ahead of and during the Iranian New Year in late March.
On Saturday, Iran began a 10-day lockdown in the capital, Tehran, and other major cities amid a fourth wave of coronavirus infections. Iran’s vaccination campaign has been slow, with some 200,000 doses administered in the country of 84 million people, according to the World Health Organization.
Last week, COVAX, an international collaboration to distribute vaccines equitably around the world, delivered its first shipment to Iran, 700,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
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