Wedding party fuelled new COVID-19 surge in Iran: Rouhani
A wedding party contributed to a new surge in coronavirus infections in Iran, the country’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday but insisted the country had no option but to keep its economy open despite warnings of a second wave of the epidemic.
Iran, which has been gradually relaxing its lockdown since mid-April, has reported a sharp rise of new daily infections in recent days. Thursday's toll of 3,574 new cases was the highest since February, when the outbreak was first reported.
"At one location, we witnessed a peak in this epidemic, the source of which was a wedding that caused problems for the people, health workers and losses to the economy and the country's health system," Rouhani said in a televised meeting in Tehran of a national committee tackling the outbreak, reports Reuters.
He did not say when or where the wedding took place.New cases dipped to 2,269 on Saturday, bringing Iran's total cases to 169,425, with 8,209 deaths.