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Tehran Scrambles for Hospital Beds

An emergency medical staff member sits in an ambulance while transferring a patient with coronavirus to Masih Daneshvari Hospital, in Tehran, March 30. WANA/Ali Khara via REUTERS
An emergency medical staff member sits in an ambulance while transferring a patient with coronavirus to Masih Daneshvari Hospital, in Tehran, March 30. WANA/Ali Khara via REUTERS
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Tehran Scrambles for Hospital Beds

An emergency medical staff member sits in an ambulance while transferring a patient with coronavirus to Masih Daneshvari Hospital, in Tehran, March 30. WANA/Ali Khara via REUTERS
An emergency medical staff member sits in an ambulance while transferring a patient with coronavirus to Masih Daneshvari Hospital, in Tehran, March 30. WANA/Ali Khara via REUTERS

Tehran ambulances carrying COVID-19 patients go from hospital to hospital in search of available beds, a physician said on Thursday as the country recorded a daily high of 4,392 new cases.

Authorities have been warning for days of severe shortages of hospital beds during a third wave of infections that has hit the capital Tehran the hardest.

“Due to the unavailability of beds in intensive care units and even in emergency units, ambulances go from one hospital to another to have patients admitted,” the official IRINN news site quoted the head of infectious diseases at the Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran as saying.

“Newly-arriving coronavirus patients have to wait for beds to become free,” said the physician, according to Reuters.

The Health Ministry registered new 230 deaths, taking the total toll to 27,888. The total number of identified cases stand at 488,236, ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari told state TV.

From Saturday, face masks will become mandatory in public in the capital Tehran. Masks have already been compulsory in public indoors since July, and will now be required outdoors in Tehran as well. State media reports say many people have flouted the regulation.

Schools, libraries, mosques and other public institutions in Tehran closed for a week on Oct. 3 as part of measures to stem the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases.

The closure also affect universities, seminaries, libraries, museums, theatres, gyms, cafes and hair salons in the capital.

Alireza Zali, head of the Tehran Coronavirus Taskforce, on Thursday asked the Health Minister to extend the closures in the capital for at least another week.

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At Least 13 People Killed in Pakistani Strikes on Suspected Militant Hideouts in Afghanistan

In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
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At Least 13 People Killed in Pakistani Strikes on Suspected Militant Hideouts in Afghanistan

In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)
In this file photo, taken on August 3, 2021, Pakistan Army troops patrol along the fence on the Pakistan Afghanistan border at Big Ben hilltop post in Khyber district. (AP/File)

Local Afghans and the Pakistani Taliban said Wednesday that civilians, including women and children, were killed after Pakistan launched rare airstrikes inside neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistani security officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with regulations, told The Associated Press that Tuesday's operation was to dismantle a training facility and kill insurgents in the province of Paktika, bordering Afghanistan.
Residents in the area told an AP reporter over the phone that at least 13 people were left dead, adding that the death toll could be higher. They also said the wounded were transported to a local hospital.
Meanwhile, in a statement, Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed that 50 people, including 27 women and children, have died in the strikes.
Pakistan has not commented on the strikes. However, on Wednesday, the Pakistani military said security forces killed 13 insurgents in an overnight intelligence-based operation in South Waziristan, a district located along eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province.
The strikes are likely to further spike tensions between the two countries. Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban government denounced the attack, saying on Tuesday that most of the victims were refugees from the Waziristan region and promising retaliation.
The TTP is a separate group but also a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021.
In March, Pakistan said intelligence-based strikes took place in the border regions inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan has seen innumerable militant attacks in the past two decades but there has been an uptick in recent months. The latest was this weekend when at least 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed when TTP attacked a checkpoint in the country’s northwest.
Pakistani officials have accused the Taliban of not doing enough to combat militant activity across the shared border, a charge the Afghan Taliban government denies, saying it does not allow anyone to carry out attacks against any country.