Italy considers bringing doctors out of retirement
Tehran
A close adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 12 more people died of the coronavirus, raising the country’s overall death toll to 66, as the country continues to record a higher death toll than anywhere outside of China.
Mohammad Mirmohammadi, 71, died in hospital in Tehran on Monday, The Associated Press reported, citing Iranian state radio. Mirmohammadi had been a member of Khamenei’s Expediency Council since 2017.
Mohammad Mirmohammadi, 71, is among a growing number of government officials to contract the virus. He is the first to die. Iran has logged more deaths than anywhere outside of China, with 54 confirmed fatalities and 978 infections.
The number of confirmed cases leapt by 523 from the previous day, to a total of 1,501, Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi told a news conference. We are announcing 523 new cases infected (and) 12 new deaths. The total number of deaths is therefore 66, Raisi said.
The worst-hit places were Tehran, the central province of Qom and Gilan in the north, the official said, adding that 291 people had recovered.
Some news reports suggest the number is far higher, and that Iran is covering up the true extent of its outbreak. The situation in Iran is cause for concern, according to the AP, as more than half of the 1,150 cases confirmed across the Middle East can be traced back to the country.
Iranian women wear protective masks to prevent contracting coronavirus, as they walk in the street in Tehran. The actual number of infected could be closer to 23,000, according to researchers at the University of Toronto and Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Trying to stem the outbreak of the new coronavirus, Iran on Monday held an online-only briefing by its foreign ministry as Britain began evacuating nonessential staff and families from the country.
The global death toll from the new coronavirus epidemic surpassed 3,000 on Monday after more people died at its epicentre in China, as cases soared around the world and US officials faced criticism over the country’s readiness for an outbreak, AFP reported.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus outbreak in northern Italy has so overwhelmed the public health system that officials are taking extraordinary measures to care for the sick. The region of Lombardy has been the epicenter of Italys outbreak, registering the first positive test of the northern cluster and now counting 984 of Italy’s 1,694 cases.
Most alarmingly, 10% of Lombardy’s doctors and nurses are out of commission, because they tested positive for the virus and are in quarantine, said the region’s top health official, Giulio Gallera. Lombardy’s regional government has asked the central government to reactivate retired doctors and nurses and get them back on the payroll. In addition, nursing students who were due to take their final exams next month are now expected to graduate in the coming days so they can be immediately put to work, Gallera said.
“We’ll take anyone: old, young. We need personnel, especially qualified doctors,” Gallera told reporters.—Agencies
