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People wearing protective clothing attend the funeral of a victim who died after being infected with the new coronavirus, in a cemetery outside Tehran, Iran. (Image: AP)
The latest deaths in the last 24 hours brought the total to 5,297, in one of the deadliest outbreaks in the world.
- PTI
- Last update: April 21, 2020, 7:30 p.m. IST
Tehran Iran announced 88 new deaths from the new coronavirus on Tuesday when the country said it had released more than 1,000 foreign prisoners from the outbreak.
According to health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour, the latest deaths in the past 24 hours brought the total to 5,297, in one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks.
The foreign prisoners were among 100,000 temporarily released prisoners in various stages since March. They included British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, arrested in 2016 and serving a five-year prison sentence for sedition. “What Iran has done to guarantee prisoners’ health and grant them license is a significant move” compared to what other countries had done, said the spokesman of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Esmaili.
A panel of UN human rights experts last week asked Iran to expand the list of inmates it has released temporarily during the COVID-19 outbreak to include “prisoners of conscience and dual-nationals and foreigners.” It also raised concerns about the spread in detention centers of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease.
In response, Esmaili said Iran should not be criticized for “discriminatory conduct” as it had an “excellent” record compared to Britain and the United States. According to Jahanpour, 1,297 additional cases of COVID-19 infection detected in the last 24 hours brought the total to 84,802.
But more than 60,900 of those admitted to the hospital had already recovered, he said, describing it as a “significant” number. Iran has so far carried out more than 365,700 COVID-19 tests, the ministry official said. The country has struggled to contain the virus outbreak since it reported its first cases on February 19.
Some officials and health experts in Iran and abroad have said that the country’s casualty figures may be higher than those declared.
Iran has allowed companies to reopen after closing most of its economy in mid-March, except for those with “high risk” such as restaurants and gyms.
The reopening of the economy has been criticized by health experts and even some government officials. Authorities have urged Iranians to refrain from using public transport when they return to work and lifted some traffic restrictions in the capital Tehran.
Tehran city council transport deputy Mohammad Alikhani said on Tuesday that so far 19 taxi drivers have died from the virus and 317 have been infected. He added that 147 bus drivers and “between 40 and 50” subway workers had also been infected, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
