DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s health ministry reported on Monday a rise of 10,463 in the number of daily coronavirus cases, bringing total cases in the Middle East’s worst-affected country to 692,949.
Ministry’s spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV that 458 people had died from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, pushing the death toll to 38,749.
Iran’s government has imposed restrictions as the country battles a third wave of the virus. Starting on Tuesday, for one month, all non-essential businesses must close at 6 p.m, Iranian media reported.
Some hospitals have run out of beds to treat new patients, Nader Tavakkoli, a member of Iran’s national coronavirus taskforce told the ISNA news agency.
“Beds allocated for coronavirus patients are full at hospitals,” Tavakkoli said. “We should have a temporary phase of two weeks closure in Tehran to control the wave of the disease … meanwhile we can get into planning.”
(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Jon Boyle and Edmund Blair)
