Hospitals in many Iranian provinces are running out of capacity to handle Covid-19 cases, health authorities say, with the novel coronavirus now killing around 300 people a day or one person every five minutes.

Reuters reported that authorities have complained of poor social distancing, and Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi said the pandemic could cause 600 daily deaths in coming weeks if Iranians failed to respect health protocols in the Middle East's hardest-affected country.

A caption that ran on state television news said an Iranian died of novel coronavirus every five minutes, a rate that corresponds to daily death tallies reported by the authorities of just above or below 300 over the past 20 days.