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◢ Iran's official death toll from the new coronavirus rose by 21 Saturday, with a lawmaker among the latest fatalities, while the government accused Washington of hampering Tehran's response to the virus. "More than 16,000 people are currently hospitalized as suspect cases," a health ministry official said during a televised news conference.
◢ Iran on Thursday reported 15 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, raising the national toll to 107, and said it would keep schools and universities closed until early April. But the number of the dead could be higher, according to a tally reported by state news agency IRNA.
◢ In coronavirus-hit Iran, healthcare workers are not just treating patients—doctors and nurses are also lifting spirits with light-hearted dance performances that have spread massively on social media. A few days ago, the death of a young nurse, Narjes Khanalizadeh, who caught the virus through contact with patients, deeply moved the country.
◢ Coronavirus has killed 92 people in Iran, officials said Wednesday, as the outbreak spread to all but one of the country's provinces. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani meanwhile dismissed a US offer to help it fight the novel coronavirus outbreak, charging that Washington hides behind a "mask of sympathy" while sanctions are depriving the country of medicine.
◢ The new coronavirus is well-established in Iran, UN health officials said on Tuesday, warning that a lack of protective gear for healthcare workers was complicating efforts to control the outbreak. “It is not an easy situation,” Michael Ryan, who heads the World Health Organization’s emergencies program, told reporters in Geneva.
◢ The head of the UN's atomic watchdog on Tuesday sounded the alarm at Iran's cooperation with the agency and demanded "clarifications" over an undeclared site in Tehran where uranium particles were found late last year. The IAEA issued two reports, one on Iran's current nuclear program and the other detailing its denial of access to two sites the agency wanted to visit.
◢ A plane carrying UN medical experts and aid touched down Monday in Iran on a mission to help it tackle the world's second-deadliest outbreak of coronavirus as European powers said they would send further help. Iran's confirmed cases leapt Monday by 523 on the previous day, hitting 1,501, said Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi.
◢ Iran on Saturday reported a surge in new coronavirus cases as the number of deaths jumped to 43, but it dismissed as "rumors" a report the real toll was much higher. The office of Tehran's governor announced a reduction in working hours in a bid to reduce the chances of the virus spreading, state television reported.
◢ A new Swiss payment mechanism allowing food, medicine and other humanitarian aid to be sent to Iran without stumbling over US sanctions has officially taken effect, Bern said Thursday. Iran has been facing severe medical shortages since the US pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on the country in 2018.
◢ The coronavirus epidemic in Iran has cost 26 lives, the health ministry announced Thursday, with a vice president becoming the latest top official to be infected as the spread appeared to accelerate. The Islamic Republic has the highest death toll from the virus outside China, where COVID-19 first emerged.
◢ Iranian authorities on Wednesday announced domestic travel restrictions for people with confirmed or suspected cases of the novel coronavirus, which has claimed 19 lives in the country—the highest tally outside China where the disease originated. The authorities also slapped curbs on visits to major Muslim pilgrimage sites.
◢ Iran said Tuesday its coronavirus outbreak, the deadliest outside China, had claimed 15 lives and infected nearly 100 others—including the country's deputy health minister. According to the health ministry, most of the deaths and infections outside Qom are among people who have recently visited the holy city.
◢ Iran's government vowed Monday to be transparent after being accused of covering up the deadliest coronavirus outbreak outside China, dismissing a lawmaker's claim the toll could be as high as 50. Authorities have ordered the closure of schools, universities and other educational centers across the country as a "preventive measure.”
◢ Four more people have died of coronavirus in Iran, a spokesman for parliament said Monday, bringing the country's overall death toll to 12—by far the most outside China. "The minister of health announced the deaths of 12 people and 47 cases of infection in the country," Assadollah Abbassi was quoted as saying by semi-official news agency ISNA after a closed session of parliament.
◢ Conservatives took a lead Saturday as the first results of Iran's parliamentary election came in, boosted by a predicted low turnout following the disqualification of nearly half the candidates. The conservative and ultra-conservative alliance appeared to have a comfortable edge in the capital in preliminary results, the committee's spokesman Esmail Mousavi said.
◢ Iran on Friday reported two more deaths among 13 new cases of coronavirus in the Islamic republic, bringing the total number of deaths to four and infections to 18. The COVID-19 outbreak first appeared in Iran on Wednesday, when officials said it killed two elderly people in the Shiite holy city of Qom.
◢ Iran has confirmed three new coronavirus cases following the deaths of two elderly men, the health ministry told AFP on Thursday, as Iraq banned travel to and from its neighbor. The pair who died were elderly Iranian citizens and residents of the city of Qom. They were the first confirmed deaths from the COVID-19 virus in the Middle East.
◢ The U.S. said it has sanctioned members of an Iranian government agency that it says rigs elections in the country by disqualifying candidates who don’t echo the political ideology of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Five members of Iran’s Guardian Council and its Elections Supervision Committee, who are appointed by Khamenei, were added to the U.S. sanctions list on Thursday.
