Iran struggles to deal with worst pandemic wave

As Iran faces what looks like its worst wave of coronavirus spread yet, footage handed out to the Associated Press by the Health Ministry shows intubated people gasping for air at a northwestern Tehran hospital overrun by COVID-19 patients.

The patients are receiving care at the intensive treatment unit of Shahid Modarres Hospital, a top-level health center that is currently working at full capacity.

Meanwhile, health officials are warning that most hospitals have had to devote many of their beds to COVID-19 patients and are already running out of free space to hospitalise new cases.

Across Tehran, Associated Press journalists have seen signs of the pandemic's toll.

At Tehran's Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital, orderlies pushed the bodies of two coronavirus victims across a parking lot to its morgue, one wrapped in white, the other in a black body bag.

All of the wards on five floors of the hospital are reserved for coronavirus patients.

Field hospitals are being prepared in Tehran and other major cities.

State television has shown images at hospitals outside the capital with patients being treated in hallways.

After facing criticism for downplaying the virus last year, Iranian authorities have put partial lockdowns and other measures back in place to try and slow the virus' spread.

But in this nation of 80 million people, which faces crushing U.S. sanctions, many struggle to earn enough to feed their families.

Economic pressure, coupled with the growing uncertainty over when vaccines will be widely available in the Islamic Republic, have many simply giving up on the luxury of social distancing.

That has public health officials worried the worst of the pandemic may be yet to come.

Iran now reports its highest-ever new coronavirus case numbers at more than 25,000 a day.

Its daily death toll has surged to around 400, still below the grim record of 486 it reached in November.

During the peak of Iran's last surge, around 20,000 coronavirus patients were hosptialised across the country. Today, that figure has topped 40,000.

The health ministry warns the number will climb to 60,000 in the coming weeks. Iran remains among the hardest-hit countries in the world and the worst-hit in the Middle East.

Overall, Iran has seen 2.2 million reported cases and 67,000 deaths in total.