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Iran: Coronavirus Daily Death Toll Above 190

reporter 1222 — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 12:13:09 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The death toll from the novel coronavirus in Iran over the past 24 hours was 194, the Health Ministry’s spokeswoman said Sunday.

Speaking at a daily press conference in Tehran, Sima Sadat Lari put the death toll from COVID-19 in Iran at 12,829, saying the disease has taken the lives of 194 patients over the past 24 hours.

She said the total number of people tested positive for COVID-19 in the country has risen to 257,303 following the detection of 2,186 new cases since Saturday.

Of the new cases detected since yesterday, 1,499 patients have been admitted to the hospital, she added.

Nearly 220,000 patients have recovered from the coronavirus infection so far or have been discharged from hospitals across Iran, the spokeswoman said.

Among those undergoing treatment in medical centers at present, 3,359 coronavirus patients have critical health conditions because of more severe infection, Lari noted.

She further said more than 1,972,000 coronavirus diagnostic tests have been carried out in Iran so far.

The number of people infected with COVID-19 across the world has surpassed 12.8 million and the death toll has exceeded 568,000.

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WHO to Investigate COVID-19 Origins in China

reporter 1222 — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 07:23:40 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The World Health Organization (WHO) is planning to send a team to China to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic in the hope of being better able to fight the spread of coronavirus.

“Knowing the source of the virus is very, very important,” the WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual press conference on Monday.

“We can fight the virus better when we know everything about the virus, including how it started,” he said, The Guardian reported.

“We will be sending a team next week to China to prepare for that and we hope that that will lead to understanding how the virus started.”

Tedros did not specify the make-up of the team, or what specifically its mission was. Scientists believe the virus jumped from animals to humans, possibly at a market in Wuhan selling exotic animals for meat.

The WHO chief also warned that the pandemic was “speeding up” and was far from over, saying he feared “the worst is still to come” unless international unity replaces fractious division.

As cases continued to rise in the US, the states of Arizona, Texas, Florida and California all imposed new restrictions on residents, backtracking on measures to reopen. Oregon and Kansas will required to wear masks in public, it was announced on Monday, while New York state governor Andrew Cuomo called on President Donald Trump to issue a nationwide order requiring face coverings to be worn in public.

The US alone accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s coronavirus cases, with close to 2.6 million confirmed infections, and 126,131 deaths. The global death toll stands at 504,927, while cases neared 10.3m on Tuesday.

The disease’s toll is worsening in other countries, too. In the UK, which has the third-highest number of deaths globally, the government imposed the first local lockdown measures – in the city of Leicester – which has a much higher COVID-19 infection rate than anywhere else in Britain. Non-essential shops will close from Tuesday and, as will schools from Thursday. It comes as the rest of England is looking forward to many restrictions lifting this weekend.

Iran, meanwhile, reported its highest one-day death toll of the pandemic so far, with 162 fatalities according to government sources. Known cases in Iran, which has the tenth-highest confirmed infections worldwide, number 225,205, with deaths at 10,670. It was one of the first countries to report significant cases in the pandemic, outside of China.

New Zealand, however, has cause for celebration, after it confirmed no new cases of COVID-19, after two weeks with a number of cases in returning travelers. In a press conference on Tuesday, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern dismissed calls to open the country’s borders.

At a news conference in Wellington, Ardern said the pandemic “is escalating not slowing, and not even peaking in some countries yet,” but that, “all of the while, we get to enjoy weekend sport, go to restaurants and bars, our workplaces are open, and we can gather in whatever numbers we like.”

“These are hard-won gains, and we have as a government no intention of squandering them,” Ardern said.

New Zealand has 22 active cases of COVID-19, all diagnosed during routine testing of returning travelers. There is no known community transmission in the country.

Other recent developments in the pandemic include:

In New York, Broadway theatres will remain closed until at least January 2021, the industry group the Broadway League has said, extending their coronavirus-related shutdown for another four months.

The 2021 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit will be hosted virtually due to COVID-19. The major gathering of Asia-Pacific world leaders – including the USA, China, Japan, Russia, and Australia – was to be staged in Auckland, New Zealand for the first time in 22 years.

Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study in the US science journal PNAS.

In the state of Victoria, in Australia, 64 new coronavirus cases were confirmed, as the state struggled to contain the worst outbreak in the country.

The post WHO to Investigate COVID-19 Origins in China appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Asymptomatic Coronavirus Cases Rises in China

reporter 1222 — Mon, 06 Apr 2020 08:24:36 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Mainland China reported 39 new coronavirus cases as of Sunday, up from 30 a day earlier, and the number of asymptomatic cases also surged, as Beijing continued to struggle to extinguish the outbreak despite drastic containment efforts.

The National Health Commission said in a statement on Monday that 78 new asymptomatic cases had been identified as of the end of the day on Sunday, compared with 47 the day before.

Imported cases and asymptomatic patients, who show no symptoms but can still pass the virus to others, have become China’s chief concern in recent weeks after draconian containment measures succeeded in slashing the overall infection rate.

Hubei province, the original epicenter of the outbreak, accounted for almost half of the new asymptomatic cases, the provincial health authority said. A total of 705 people with asymptomatic cases were under medical observation around mainland China, Reuters reported.

The surge in asymptomatic cases, which China only began reporting last week, poses a worry as the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan prepares to allow people to leave the city on April 8 for the first time since it was locked down in late January.

Hubei began easing travel curbs late last month, part of China’s wider effort to get the economy back on track even as it tries to prevent a second wave of infections.

Wuhan officials revoked the “epidemic-free” status of 45 residential compounds due to the emergence of asymptomatic cases and for other unspecified reasons, according to a report on Monday by the official Xinhua news agency.

“Epidemic-free” status allows people living in a compound in Wuhan to leave their homes for two hours at a time.

Mainland China has reported a total of 81,708 cases, with 3,331 deaths.

China has closed off its borders to foreigners as the virus spreads globally, though most imported cases have involved Chinese nationals returning from overseas.

Of the new cases showing symptoms, 38 were people who had entered China from abroad, compared with 25 a day earlier.

Of those, 20 had arrived in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang from neighboring Russia, the provincial government said. All were Chinese citizens who had flown from Moscow to Vladivostok, including 12 who were on the same April 2 flight and traveled to China by road.

Another possible source of infection is the roughly 1.6 million Chinese citizens who study overseas, many of whom have struggled to return home since Beijing cut international flights into the country.

Preparations are underway to arrange charter flights to bring home Chinese students studying in the United States, starting with the youngest, China’s embassy to the United States said.

One new locally transmitted infection was reported in the latest data, in the southern province of Guangdong, down from five a day earlier in the same province.

The new locally transmitted case, in the city of Shenzhen, was a person who had traveled from Hubei province, Guangdong provincial authorities said.

The Guangdong health commission raised the risk level for a total of four districts in the cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Jieyang from low to medium late on Sunday.

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China built hospital due to contingency plans

reporter 1222 — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 08:38:30 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – China has finished the construction of an emergency hospital in just eight days in Wuhan, the city at the center of the new Coronavirus outbreak as the epidemic continues to claim more lives and infect more people across the country and beyond its borders.

Work had begun on the construction of the 1000-bed emergency Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei Province, on January 23, and was completed on Sunday, according to Chinese media.

The hospital is set to receive patients confirmed with the Coronavirus infection from Monday.

The new hospital is one of the two dedicated facilities being constructed to help tackle the viral outbreak, which has infected more than 17,000 people across China — with more than 11,000 cases reported in Hubei Province alone.

The construction of the second hospital in Wuhan is due to be finished on Wednesday.

The never-before-seen virus was first reported in December in a seafood and poultry market in Wuhan, with a population of 11 million people.

According to latest figures from China’s National Health Commission, the infection has killed more than 360 people as of Monday across China.

Authorities sent more than 8,000 medical workers to Hubei to combat the outbreak.

Chinese media said 1,400 army medical staff members were also arriving in Wuhan to start work in the new hospital.

Wuhan has been under lockdown for almost two weeks to stop people from leaving the areas and transmitting the virus.

Hospitals in the province are reportedly understaffed and overburdened. They are also dealing with a shortage of medical supplies.

Viral pneumonia has crossed the Chinese borders and infected more than 170 people in more than 24 countries, with one fatality reported in the Philippines on Sunday.

The outbreak, which sparked fears of a possible pandemic, has prompted many countries to impose unprecedented travel bans on people traveling to and from China.

The World Health Organization has also declared the crisis a global health emergency.

Iran to suspend direct flights to, from China

Dozens of states and international airlines have suspended flights to and from China.

Iran said on Sunday it will suspend all direct flights to and from China.

At a cabinet meeting on Sunday, the government announced certain contingency measures were needed to protect the population against a possible outbreak of the virus.

Health officials said a flight with medical equipment and a medical team on board will be sent to Wuhan to bring back Iranian students and citizens.

According to the officials, passengers of all incoming flights from China will be quarantined upon arriving in Iran.

“All passengers including those arriving from China are being screened, and those suspected being infected are isolated by the Ministry of Health personnel,” said Iranian Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami.

There have been no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Iran so far.

US sending more flights for evacuation

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday that the administration plans “a handful more flights” to evacuate Americans from Hubei.

“We might be bringing citizens home from other countries as well,” he said. “In addition, we might bring in some medical supplies.”

The US administration dramatically escalated its response to the virus spread on Friday by announcing quarantines and major travel restrictions.

Australia evacuates citizens

Australia’s Foreign Minister Marise Payne said 243 citizens and permanent residents left Wuhan on an Australian aircraft that has medical-grade air filters on Monday.

Payne said that “89 of the Australians on the flight are under 16 and five are under two.”

The flight will go to an air force base in Western Australia, from where the government will fly the passengers on military flights to Christmas Island.

The evacuees will be quarantined in a detention center in the Indian Ocean off Australia’s northwest coast.

Australia has formerly used the center to detain asylum seekers.

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