Iran is to start imposing fines for breaches of health regulations in the capital, President Hassan Rouhani announced on Saturday, as the confirmed cases in the Islamic Republic are approaching half a million.
The police, the Basij paramilitary force and health inspectors will have powers to impose the fines, and offenders will have two weeks to make payment into a health ministry account, Rouhani said in a televised speech during the weekly coronavirus taskforce meeting.
Breaches punishable by a fine include refusal to quarantine while sick and failure to wear a mask in a public space or require a customer to do so.
The announcement comes after daily coronavirus infections hit a record high this week. ran’s daily death toll from the novel coronavirus hit a record high of 239 on Wednesday. Daily infections reached a new high of 4,392 the following day.
Meanwhile on Saturday, Iranian Health Ministry said that more than 3,800 new coronavirus patients have been detected in Iran during the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of infected cases close to 500,000.
Speaking at a daily press conference on Saturday, ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said the total number of people tested positive for COVID-19 in Iran has risen to 496,253 following the detection of 3,875 new cases since Friday.
Among those undergoing treatment in medical centers at present, 4,439 coronavirus patients have critical health conditions because of more severe infection, she noted.
Lari further put the death toll from COVID-19 in Iran at 28,293, saying the disease has taken the lives of 195 patients over the past 24 hours.
Nearly 404,000 patients have recovered from the coronavirus infection so far or have been discharged from hospitals across Iran, the spokeswoman said.
The number of people infected with COVID-19 across the world has surpassed 37 million and the death toll has exceeded 1,070,000.
Source: AFP and Tasnim news agency
