Avoid travelling to two key tourist areas, Iranians urged
TEHRAN: Tehran on Friday urged Iranians to avoid travelling to two key tourist areas as it announced a drop in daily coronavirus deaths ater a record toll a day earlier.
With the start of the summer holidays, the health ministry “strongly advised everyone to avoid travelling to the provinces of Khorasan Razavi and Mazandaran,” two top tourist regions in the north of the country, health ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said.
She told state television that 142 people had died of the COVID-19 illness, down from 221 on Thursday — a single-day record for the Islamic republic.
A further 2,262 new infections were also recorded on Friday, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 252,720, including 12,447 deaths.
The situation was worrying in 19 of Iran’s 31 provinces where infections were on the rise, including Tehran, Lari said.
“Most of the (new) cases of hospitalisation and infection are related to funerals and wedding celebrations,” she added, citing official reports provided to the ministry.
For several weeks, the novel coronavirus has gained ground in Iran, which is batling the deadliest outbreak in the Middle East.
The country’s daily death toll from the virus has topped 100 since around mid-june, prompting authorities to make wearing masks mandatory in enclosed public places, among other measures.
In a separate development, an explosion was heard in western Tehran on Friday, the official IRIB news agency reported, citing online reports.
There have been multiple explosions around military, nuclear and industrial facilities in the past week. IRIB did not provide any additional information about the cause of the blast or possible casualties.
Electricity has been cut in the area of the explosion in suburbs west of Tehran, IRIB reported.
Two people were killed in an explosion at a factory in the south of Tehran, state news agency IRNA reported.
Last Thursday, a fire broke out at a ground level building at Iran’s underground Natanz facility, the centrepiece of the country’s uranium enrichment programme, which authorities said had caused significant damage.