A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom from the new coronavirus this month, Iran’s semiofficial ILNA news agency reported on Monday.

The new death toll is significantly higher than the latest number of confirmed cases of infections that Iranian officials had reported just a few hours earlier by and which stood at just 12 deaths out of 47 cases, according to state TV.

An official from Qom, Ahmad Amiriabadi Farahani, was quoted in ILNA saying that more than 250 people are in quarantine in the city, which is a popular place of religious study for Shiites from across Iran and other countries.

He said the 50 deaths date as far back as Feb. 13. Iran, however, first officially reported cases of the virus and its first deaths on February 19.

source apnews.com