Deputy health minister calls for mandatory face mask rule
An Iranian official called for announcing mandatory face mask rule as the country on Wednesday reported its highest daily coronavirus death toll in more than twoand-a-half months.
“It is certainly required that the wearing of masks becomes mandatory,” said Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raeisi.
“If we use masks, especially in closed spaces and gatherings, we can very much reduce the virus spread,” he added in remarks broadcast on television.
Iran reported its first COVID-19 cases on February 19, and it has since struggled to contain the outbreak as the death toll nears 10,000.
The country has refrained from imposing a mandatory lockdown on people to stop the virus spread, and the use of masks and protective equipment is optional in most areas.
Iran closed schools, canceled public events and banned movement between its 31 provinces in March, but the government gradually lifted restrictions from April to try to reopen the economy.
Official figures have shown a rising trajectory in new confirmed cases since early May, when Iran had hit a near-two-month low in daily recorded infections. Health Ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said on Wednesday that the 133 fatalities from Tuesday to
Wednesday brought the country’s overall virus death toll to 9,996.
That made it the deadliest day in Iran since April 6, when the government reported 136 virus fatalities.
It was also the sixth consecutive day that Iran has reported more than 100 virus deaths.
Lari added that Iran’s virus infection caseload had jumped by 2,531 to a total of 212,501, some 1,340 of whom have been hospitalized.
She added that 2,869 COVID-19 patients are in critical conditions and being treated in intensive care units.
In Khuzestan, Kurdestan, Hormuzgan, Bushehr, and some areas of Fars, Lorestan, Kermanshah, and Golestan provinces, “we have not had a decrease in the number of cases and hospitalizations of patients”, Lari said. However, she said that these provinces are still on alert.