Iran’s Rouhani: ‘COVID-19 pandemic might remain until the end of Iranian calendar year’

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions imposed to contain it, could remain until the end of the Iranian calendar year, Anadolu Agency reported, citing state-run Iranian television.

“No one knows when the coronavirus pandemic will end. It might continue in the next three months, and it might remain until the end of this year [20 March, 2021, according to the Iranian calendar].”

Rouhani stressed on the importance of abiding by the Iranian Health Ministry’s rules and measures.

He added that his government’s actions are two-fold: the first being the fight against the coronavirus, the second, fighting poverty, especially since many Iranians have lost their sources of income due to the measures taken against the pandemic.

Earlier on Thursday, Iranian authorities announced the rise of the coronavirus death toll to 3,160 cases, including 124 deaths in the past 24 hours alone.

READ: Iranian parliament speaker tests positive for COVID-19 

According to the Health Ministry’s spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour, the total number of those infected by COVID-19 is 50,468, including 2,975 cases confirmed in the last 24 hours.

So far, 16,711 cases have recovered across the country, with 3,956 cases in critical condition, according to official records.

On Thursday noon, the number of cases infected by the global pandemic across the world stood at 950,000, out of which more than 48,000 have died and more than 202,000 have recovered, according to the Worldometer website.