Iran warned on Wednesday of a "rising trend" this week in the COVID-19 outbreak as it said 1,680 new infections took its overall caseload beyond the 100,000 mark.
Iran has struggled to contain the Middle East's deadliest coronavirus outbreak since announcing its first cases in mid-February.
Concerns were raised last month about the threat of a "second wave" of the virus in a report by parliament that criticized the government's slow response.
"We are witnessing a rising trend in the past three or four days, which is significant," health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told a televised news conference.
The rise was "based on our behavior, especially in the past two weeks, considering that a part of society has apparently had a change of attitude," he added.
The newly reported infections brought the country's overall number of confirmed cases to 101,650.
On Saturday, Iran's official tally of daily infections hit its lowest level since March 10, but cases have picked up again since then.
Jahanpour said the spike in cases could be due to an increase in movement across cities and unnecessary travel.
Iran has allowed a phased return to work to revitalize its economy since April 11 and reopened mosques in parts of the country deemed to be at low risk.
Jahanpour also said the death toll rose by 78 in the past 24 hours to 6,418.
Out of those hospitalized, 81,587 had recovered and were discharged while 2,735 were in critical condition.
A report published by parliament in mid-April said the real death toll could be as much as 80 percent higher than what the government announced.
It said the officially announced figures were based only on "patients that are hospitalized with severe symptoms".
It also said a "second wave" of the virus may come next winter, possibly without a break due to containment measures taking too long.
