Ten thousand hospital beds in the Iranian capital are now occupied by patients with severe Covid-19 after a surge in cases prompted by to the Delta variant, the deputy director for Tehran’s Coronavirus Taskforce has said.
Nader Tavakoli told IRNA on Tuesday that hospital beds earmarked for the armed forces and social security recipients would be co-opted for use by Covid-19 patients in the coming days.
But these extra beds only run to about 500 or 600, he said, adding that if the situation continued field hospitals would need to be be set up in the capital.
"We are currently having some difficulty in placing patients," he said. “They mostly come to the emergency departments and are not transferred onto the wards until the next shift.”
According to official statistics from the Ministry of Health, 322 Covid-19 patients died in the 24 hours leading up to noon on Monday.
The total number of fatalities recorded in Iran since the initial coronavirus outbreak stood at 89,122 at the time of writing. The true figure is likely to be significantly higher.
So far, just 10.6 million doses of any brand of Covid-19 vaccine have been distributed in the country.
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