The coronavirus-related death toll in Iran is more than double as high as official figures indicate, news agency Isna reported on Tuesday, citing a crisis management team seeking to stem contagion.
Heath expert Massud Mardani was cited as saying that the daily death toll cited by the Health Ministry, which stood at 337 on Monday, would have to be multiplied by 2.5 in order to get the real number of deaths.
Other health experts in Iran share Mardani's assessment that the country's actual coronavirus caseload is significantly higher than official figures due to limited testing capacity.
Experts are demanding an immediate lockdown in large cities - particularly in Tehran, a major hotspot - in order to prevent the health care system from becoming too strained.
The daily death toll announced on Monday was a record in the country since the onset of the pandemic. It took the overall death toll from Covid-19 to 30,712. The total number of people who have contracted the virus stood at 534,631.
