Iranian coronavirus infections surge after lockdown is lifted
Coronavirus cases in Iran have surged again as the country has eased restrictions.
The number of new daily infections in the country – the Middle East nation hardest-hit by the pandemic – peaked on March 30 with 3,186 and fell throughout April to a low of 802 new cases on May 2. But in the past two weeks, the number of cases has steadily increased and topped 2,000 on Friday.
Yesterday, the country reported 1,806 new cases.
Officials have downplayed the rise, saying mortality continues to decrease even as cases pick up. But health ministry officials admitted the latest rises represent a setback, saying clusters in some provinces had led to the spike.
“We are in a situation similar to previous days [in most provinces] save for Khuzestan, which is still in a critical condition, and it seems that North Khorasan may be critical as well,” health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said on Thursday.
“If this trend continues, North Khorasan will require more serious measures, too,” he said in televised remarks about the north-eastern province, which shares a border with Turkmenistan. Authorities in the south-west province of Khuzestan, which borders Iraq, shut state bodies, banks and non-essential businesses again in about a third of its counties. Iran stopped publishing provincial figures for the coronavirus last month.
Officials in the south-east province of Sistan and Baluchistan, which shares its border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, also issued warnings of a new spike in infections. Ghasem Miri, deputy head of the medical university in the provincial capital Zahedan, said they had not seen such an increase in coronavirus infections since late February.
He said the jump was due to the failure of people to observe “social distancing and health protocols”.
Since April 11, Iran has reopened in phases. The country has had 120,000 confirmed cases, slightly fewer than 7,000 official deaths and 94,000 recoveries, but a health report by Parliament last month said the true toll could be more than double the reported number. The document highlighted that only those who died in hospital were counted in official tallies and said the number killed by Covid-19 could be 80 per cent higher than the official figure at the time of 4,777.
It also said that infections could be “eight to 10” per cent higher than the 76,389 infections reported then. For weeks, Iran tried to bring the numbers down without implementing a curfew or closing religious sites. As cases soared and deaths mounted, authorities moved to close mosques and encourage people to stay at home. But the Islamic republic reopened religious sites this month – against the advice of health experts – and crowds gathered at major shrines.
In big cities, people have returned to work and are travelling more, even if masks are a more common sight on the streets of Tehran today than before the crisis.
A report found the true toll of virus cases could be more than double the stated number