Death toll in Iran jumps to 54

TEHRAN: Iran's health ministry raised on Sunday the nationwide death toll from the new coronavirus to 54 as the number of infected cases jumped overnight to 978 people.

The ministry's spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said new cases were confirmed in a number of cities, including Mashhad, which is home to Iran's most important Shiite shrine that attracts pilgrims from across the region.

Calls by Iran's civilian government to clerics to close such shrines to to the public have not been uniformly followed. The shrine in Mashhad is among those that have remained open.

The new figures represent 11 more deaths than reported on Saturday and a whopping 385 new cases of infections. The new numbers, however, bring down the percentage of deaths to infections from 20 per cent to around 5.5 per cent. Still, that is much higher than other countries, suggesting the number of infections may also be much higher.

Jahanpour said in his daily briefing that the number of cases is "still inclining" across Iran.

Also on Sunday, Iran's state broadcaster said all flights to the city of Rasht, the capital of nothern Gilan province, had been suspended. It gave no reasons why. The area of Gilan has some of Iran's highest number of infections after the capital, Tehran, and the holy city of Qom, the epicenter of the virus outbreak in the country. The illness, known as COVID-19 and that originated in central China, has infected at least seven government officials in Iran, including one of its vice presidents and a senior health ministry official.

Iran has said it is preparing for the possibility of tens of thousands of people getting tested for the virus behind the outbreak.

Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Sunday the government was waging “all-out responses” to contain the novel coronavirus as the country added 586 more cases, taking the total to 3,736.

South Korea has the largest national total in the world outside China, after it saw a rapid surge in the number of coronavirus cases in recent days.

Scores of events have been cancelled or postponed over the contagion, while the country's central bank has warned of a minus growth in the first quarter for the world's 12thlargest economy, noting the epidemic will hit both consumption and exports.

“The government is now waging all-out responses after raising the crisis alert to the highest level,” Moon said at an Independence Movement Day ceremony, scaled down due to the outbreak.

“We will be able to overcome the COVID-19 outbreak and revive our shrunken economy,” he added.

Samsung Electronics suspended operations at its domestic smartphone plant in Gumi -- 200 kilometres (210 miles) southeast of Seoul -- on Saturday for the second time in a week, after a third employee tested positive for the virus.