Islamic Republic Ministry of Health, today, around 7:25 AM local time, updated its Mask App to show 63 counties are in “black” status, 85 in “beyond red,” 176 in “red,” 78 in “orange,” 39 in “yellow” and 7 in “blue”. A few hours later, Dr. Raisi, National Task Force Spokesman who is also Deputy Health Minister in Public Health, in an interview on national TV said that “new coloring” system is not correct, National Task Force is the only reference for colors which are then instructed to Interior Ministry and they inform Governors of their cities’ colors! He admitted 63 counties are in dire situation and the criteria for coloring system have surpassed but he refused to acknowledge the “black” color! He also reaffirmed there is no extra restrictions for the “black” cities. Despite his denial, many provincial officials including Qazvin, Markazi, Alborz, Kohgiloyeh-Boyerahmad, Khuzestan,… used “black” as their designated color. It is worth noting, the map’s colors transformed after an hour.
Raisi, however, acknowledged they did not deliver on their promise to vaccinate 1.3million people by March 20, saying that would be achieved by April 20! He did not offer more details how that is possible when according to Ministry of Health figures, only 102,711 have received both doses since February 9. The daily vaccination doses is at 5,229.
On the other hand, Mr. Health Minister provided another grim prediction. Saeed Namaki said next week the situation would be “much worse.” He took his time to attack his critiques, especially on vaccination process. Namaki, once again, promised mass immunization will begin in the next 20 days, by using imported vaccines and domestic ones. He did not mention the name of vaccines, however, Jalali, Islamic Republic Ambassador in Russia reported signing of final agreement to purchase 60million doses of Sputnik V. According to Islamic Republic Customs, 400,000 doses of Sinopharm donated by China’s Red Cross arrived in Tehran, today.
Ministry of Health Spokesperson announced her daily manipulated data. Sima Sadat Lari claimed 321 died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours in Iran while 25,078 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Iran Medical Board believes the real numbers are at least 3 times more than what is reported every day! The Ministry has not released any data on the number of specific strains circulating in Iran, especially the UK variant, in the past month. Daily PCR testing reduced by 3,000 while positivity rate increased to 26.48% from 26.18% the day before. Active cases reach a new high every day, as seen on the graphs.
R0: 3.82
Total: 2,168,872 (+25,078)
Dead: 65,680 (+321)
Recovered: 1,749,041
Critical: 4,601 (+62)
Active Cases: 354,151 (+14,718)
Tests: 14,059,260 (16.9% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Mostafa Roudaki
