TEHRAN, April 2. /TASS/. In the past 24 hours, 2,875 coronavirus cases were registered in Iran, making the total case count exceed 50,000, Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said Thursday.

"Since yesterday, 2,875 new coronavirus cases were registered in the country. The total amount of the infected is 50,468 people," he said, according to Fars news agency.

During the past 24 hours, 124 people died from the coronavirus, while the total amount of fatalities is 3,160," Jahanpur said.

The spokesman added that 16,711 people have recovered.

During the first two decades of March, coronavirus incidence stayed at 1,000-1,200 new cases per day. However, on March 23, this figure began to increase rapidly, and for five days it stayed above 3,000 cases per day. For the last six days, it stayed between 2,800 and 3,200 new cases per day.

Due to the coronavirus spread, all Iranian schools are closed until April. Many nations have cut transport communication with the republic. The Iranian authorities temporarily released 100,000 prisoners and barred movement between cities for the citizens.

In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. To date, more than 938,000 people have been infected worldwide and over 47,000 deaths have been reported. That said, over 195,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.