Saeed Namaki once again repeats his gloomy prediction for next week, admitting many cities are “beyond red” criteria and hospitals are having trouble keeping up with the flood of COVID-19 patients across Iran. According to the Islamic Republic Health Minister, this is the worst coronavirus wave since the epidemic began in February 2020. He followed National Task Force Spokesman’s line and denied the existence of “black” color on the corona map, despite his Ministry showing it yesterday. In the meantime, he claimed by mid next week the first phase of vaccination (healthcare staff and vulnerable groups, 1.3million people) would be completed and will accelerate the immunization process from April 20.
Namaki did not offer more details about discrepancies in numbers provided by different medical officials! According to Sharifimoghadam from House for Nurses, majority of nurse have not received a single shot yet. None of private healthcare workers has been vaccinated and Medical Board officials confirmed about 40% of their members have been vaccinated so far. Even Ministry of Health Spokesperson announced only 112,108 have been fully vaccinated since February 09. FDA Spokespman confirmed the final agreement between Russia and Islamic Republic has been signed for 60million doses of Sputnik V to be delivered by Fall. Kianoush Jahanpur showed optimism that by the end of Persian Year (March 20, 2022), the majority of Iranians will be vaccinated.
The process for inoculating Iranians have been so non-transparent, obscure, and chaotic that even Islamic Republic media are confused and have started to criticize the whole process and question officials’ promises. They point out that Islamic Republic President and Health Minister being at odds is creating more hurdles, playing with people’s lives. Rouhani favors private companies to import vaccines, while Namaki says “yogurt and carpet sellers from Iraq and Afghanistan are trying to deal vaccine for us, making money!” Namaki insists on domestic production of vaccines while there is nothing to show the required infrastructure exists in Iran. He keeps claiming homegrown vaccines will be ready by the end of spring, while ordinary people are dying in full hospitals. In addition, Khamenei has banned UK, US and France made vaccines!
Moreover, there is no supervision on how the roll out and administration of doses are performed. In addition to previous complaints about some receiving shots out of turn, today, head of Abadan Medical College confirmed several members of Abadan City Council and Mayor office, including Mayor himself, entered their name in “street cleaners” list and were vaccinated! While Namaki expressed his outrage, but this is just an example of corruption in the system which made its way to media.
Ministry of Health Spokesperson continues to present her daily manipulated data even though Iran Medical Board and other officials have admitted the real numbers are at least 3 times higher. Sima Sadat Lari claimed 328 died of COVID-19 in Iran in the past 24 hours while 25,261 tested for the novel coronavirus. Unlike her usual daily reports, she did not mention the color of counties! According to her, 372,362 have received a single dose while 112,108 are fully vaccinated. That is 21,828 jabs since yesterday. Daily PCR tests reached 106,000 for the first time in 14 months while only 17% of population have been tested. Active cases continue to rise, setting a new record every day, as seen on the graphs.
R0: 3.82
Total: 2,194,133 (+25,261)
Dead: 66,008 (+328)
Recovered: 1,761,497
Critical: 4,652 (+51)
Active Cases: 366,628 (+12,477)
Tests: 14,165,771 (17.0% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Fatemeh Rahimavian
