TEHRAN (Iran News) –Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami said on Sunday that Iran placed travel ban on 39 countries amid the fourth wave of coronavirus pandemic in Iran.
Eslami said that all tourism agencies must comply with the Coronavirus National Headquarters regulations banning any tour to Turkey, as normal flights to and from Turkey are still operating because of trading issues.
Iran’s Khuzestan Province has gone red in terms of coronavirus spread, he said, adding that travels to and from Iraq was prohibited due to the health situation in Khuzestan province.
He further said that teams are settled on border crosses to do coronavirus tests to stop infected people on entry.
He added that the ban on UK flights is still in place and that it wasn’t still known when Turkey tours would resume operation.
Meanwhile Coronavirus Headquarters member said on Sunday that the Iraq passenger travel ban has been extended until April 20 due to intensified virus spread.
Hossein Qassemi, Secretary of Security-Social Committee in Coronavirus Headquarters said that the decision to extend the passenger travel ban to and from Iraq was taken to avoid negative impacts on civil projects.
According to the decision, the official said, only those who have residence authentication, educational, healthcare, and investment visas and business persons with business visas can cross the Iran-Iraq border.
Later yesterday, Health Ministry spokeswoman announced in her presser that in the past 24 hours, 258 COVID-19 patients had lost their lives, the highest daily toll since early December, bringing the total death toll to 64,690.
“According to definitive laboratory findings from yesterday to April 11, 2021, 2,070,141 people in the country have been infected with the coronavirus, and 1,710,974 of the total infected people recovered,” Sima Sadat Lari stated.
She added that newly diagnosed patients with COVID-19 were 21,063 cases, out of whom 2,780 patients were hospitalized.
4,392 COVID-19 patients are in critical condition.
“So far, 13,673,466 COVID-19 diagnosis tests have been conducted across the country,” the Health Ministry spokeswoman noted.
According to the latest analysis, 257 cities are in red, 129 in orange, 51 are in yellow, and 11 are in the blue zones.
Health Minister Saeed Namaki, in a televised news conference, warned about more fatalities in the coming week if Iranians fail to adhere to health protocols.
On Saturday, authorities were forced to impose fresh nationwide restrictions after lack of control over travels during the Persian New Year holidays last month led to an explosive rise in COVID-19 cases.
Starting Saturday, all regions across Iran will undergo various degrees of restrictions based on how they have been classified under a color-coded scale denoting the severity of outbreaks.
Iran’s coronavirus map looks like a sea of red as more than 250 cities, including all 32 province centers, are now classified “red”, indicating the highest level of severity.
