President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday announced that in one month, the number of cities on the highest coronavirus alert has dived from 160 to zero, as stringent measures imposed in the past two months curbed the third wave of infections.

We were very concerned on Nov. 21 when 160 cities were on red alert, Rouhani said during the National Corona virus Headquarters meeting. Now, there are no red cities throughout the nation, president.ir reported.

Iran tightened its corona virus-related localized restrictions in the past two months to ward off an outbreak that was killing nearly 500 every day, by enforcing travel restrictions, closing non-essential businesses and placing a nightly curfew in regions hit worst by the virus.

Over the past one and a half months, fatalities from the pandemic have declined by roughly 50% NCT Spokesman Alireza Rabiei said.

Hospitalizations across the country have dropped by 40% and most provinces are on a downward trend.

Raeisi said only one of the country`s 31 provinces, the northern province of Mazandaran, is still registering a rise in daily cases.

According to latest data collected by the Health Ministry, most cities across Iran have been moved to the lowest alert level, with 243 cities tagged as yellow and 205 cities on the second highest alert level, or orange.

With the National Nurse Day coinciding with Yalda celebrations on Dec. 30, Rouhani used the occasion to plead with the public not to hold home gatherings in respect for the nurses who have laid down their lives in the line of work.

Over 145,000 nurses are currently working in Iran, some 60,000 have been infected with the corona virus over the past 10 months, Alireza Zali, the head of Tehran`s corona virus taskforce, said.

To prevent an upsurge in infections, the government has extended curfew hours in orange cities by one hour on Yalda and on the preceding day, banning movement within cities from 8 p.m to 4 a.m on Saturday and Sunday.

Raeisi noted that as part of the precautionary measures, all non-essential businesses across the country are to close at 6 p.m on Saturday and Sunday.
On the last day of autumn, Iranian celebrate the winter solstice and hold home gatherings and parties in enclosed spaces that has raised concerns over the resurgence of the infectious disease.

Deaths caused by the contagion remained below the 200 mark, taking the lives of 175 patients on Saturday and bringing the national toll to nearly 53,500, the spokes woman for the Health Ministry, Sima Sadat Lari, said.

Some 6,421 were confirmed to have contracted the coronavirus ... The number of Covid-19 patients reached 1.15 million, she said.

Over 875,000 have recovered from the infectious disease and 5,590 are hospitalized in intensive care units.

Iran has administered over 6.99 million diagnostic tests since the deadly virus was first spotted in the central city of Qom.

Worldwide coronavirus cases jumped to 76.1 million and fatalities soared past 1.68 million.