TEHRAN, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Iran announced on Monday a record of 10,463 new COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours, taking the total number of cases in the country to 692,949, official news agency IRNA reported.
Sima Sadat Lari, the spokeswoman for the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, said at her daily briefing that 3,574 of the newly infected patients required hospitalization.
Meanwhile, 458 new deaths related to the novel coronavirus were registered between Sunday and Monday, raising the death toll to 38,749 in Iran since the outbreak of the pandemic, she added.
As of Monday, 525,641 COVID-19 patients have recovered or been released from Iranian hospitals, while 5,561 others are currently in critical condition in intensive care units, said Sadat Lari.
The number of laboratory tests for COVID-19 carried out in Iran has so far reached 5,263,173 units, the spokeswoman noted, adding that the risk of infection is high in 27 out of 31 Iranian provinces, while the other four are on orange and yellow alert over the spread of the disease.
Iran announced its first cases of COVID-19 on Feb. 19. Enditem
