Iran urged its citizens to take social distancing “more seriously” on Friday as it announced more than 1,500 new cases of coronavirus infection in the Middle East’s hardest-hit country. Since reporting its first cases in mid-February, the Islamic republic has struggled to contain the spread of the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said 55 new virus fatalities in the past 24 hours took the overall death toll in the health crisis to 6,541.