Photos: Coronavirus stills Iran's capital Tehran

The typically frenetic streets of Iran's capital, Tehran, have fallen silent and empty over recent days due to the new coronavirus outbreak that's gripped the Islamic Republic. | Above: Azadi (Freedom) Square in Tehran is seen empty.

The now-deserted cafes where waitstaff lounge around with no customers to serve, or the closed bookstores and stadiums, are such a sharp contrast to the way things were. | Above: An empty soccer football field with dirt surface is seen in Tehran.

Iran's government for days downplayed the effects of the coronavirus. But as cases and deaths from the COVID-19 spiked, life changed dramatically on Tehran's main highways, in the narrow corridors of its historical Grand Bazaar and in the public spaces under portraits of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. | Above: Famous Grand Bazaar in Tehran is seen closed.

People began wearing masks, then gloves, then completely disappeared as the Persian New Year, Nowruz, closed down much of the country. The playgrounds and parks, closed to the public, sit empty. | Above: An empty park.

The same goes for the cinemas, the bus stations and the malls, including a massive one in Tehran's outskirts now housing a newly built clinic for the virus. | Above: A worker cleans an empty and closed cinema hall.

Even many shrines, deeply important to Iran's Shiite faithful, are emptier now. | Above: A woman with a mask walks in the yard of a mosque in Shahr-e-Ray, south of Tehran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has asked businesses to start to reopen beginning April 11, leading some to worry that another spike in coronavirus cases could loom. | Above: A pedestrian crosses an empty street in Tehran.

But for now, solitary figures cut across Tehran's streets at night as hazmat-suited firefighters spray disinfectant on the streets, trying to fight an enemy that no one can see but all know is there. | Above: A pedestrian walks past an army garrison in Tehran.

A view of semi-finished construction projects is seen in Tehran.

Under portraits of the late Iranian revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, right, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, a man with a mask crosses an empty street in Tehran.

A man sits alone in an empty park in Tehran.