Covid19: Iran announces new deaths, toll surges past 2,000

Tehran: Iran on Wednesday announced 143 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, raising the official death toll to 2,077 in one of the world's worst-hit countries.

Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said "our colleagues have registered 2,206 new cases of COVID-19 infection" in the past 24 hours, bringing total infections to 27,017.