Rouhani warns lockdown may be reimposed as Iran’s COVID-19 tally nears 185,000
14 June, 2020 | newsx bureau
President Hassan Rouhani warns the population that restrictions could be re-imposed of the lockdown in the country due to increase in the number of COVID-19 cases.
Iran’s Health Ministry said that the overall number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country increased by 2,410 to 184,955 over the past 24 hours, the highest daily rise since June 5, while President Hassan Rouhani warned the population on Saturday that restrictions could be re-imposed of the lockdown.
According to the health authorities, 71 coronavirus carriers died over the given period, taking the COVID-19 death toll to 8,730 since the start of the outbreak. At the same time, the number of recoveries reached 146,748. On June 4, Iran registered a record 3,574 cases in one day, and since then the country has since been reporting less than 3,000 cases a day. Nonetheless, Iran is seeing an upward trend for the fourth day in a row. Iranian authorities have explained the spike by more aggressive testing.
Meanwhile, Rouhani said that the coronavirus-related restrictions could be re-imposed and called on Iranians to take the pandemic seriously. The President added that regional governors will be able to introduce the lockdown measures if needed.
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Iran started to gradually ease the lockdown in mid-April. Since then, the Middle Eastern country allowed most businesses to reopen and lifted the ban on travel between provinces. The global count of confirmed coronavirus cases has surpassed the landmark of 7.5 million, with 142,672 cases recorded over the past day, the World Health Organization said in its daily situation report on Saturday. Over the past 24 hours, 5,055 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the death toll to 423,349 fatalities, according to the report. The cumulative global toll of confirmed cases has now reached 7,553,182, as stated in the report. The plurality of cases and deaths — 3.64 million and 196,440, respectively — remain concentrated in the Americas. The United States continues being the country with the highest single count of cases (2 million) and fatalities (113,757)
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