While everybody, including city officials and parliament members continue to criticize the government’s daily stats, the Ministry of Health Spokesman continues to lash out at everybody and insists the stats are correct, 1,194 new cases and 94 deaths since yesterday. Today, at his daily video conference, the majority of time was spent on answering questions about people and officials doubting the numbers. He said, “We don’t provide political statistics. The Ministry only answers to the parliament and Judiciary and other higher ranking officials.”
For whatever reason, he continues to compare the current situation, or as he says, “a health crisis”, with Iran-Iraq war. It seems like we’re in a war we don’t know anything about! Islamic Republic has maintained its animosity position against US, and sees everything as a contest it must win. It’s like its whole existence revolves around having US as the enemy! The novel Coronavirus is another war for them that they have to outdo the “enemy” at any cost, including people’s lives.
The median Reproduction rate of the virus, an indication of how contaigeous Coronavirus is in the country, remains the same at 1.22, meaning every person with the virus could transmit it to an average of 1.22 person! Any number above 1 indicates the crisis is ongoing. This is based on the fictional numbers provided by the government. The graphs continue to support this notion with growth factors of above 1.
R0: 1.22
Total: 85,996
Dead: 5,391
Healed: 63,113
Critical: 3,311
Admitted: 17,492
Tests: 377,396 at 126 labs
Iran International reports 1560 deaths in the past 24 hours. Khorasan Razavi passes 1000 deaths and Tehran nears the 2000 mark! According to them, COVID-19 has taken the lives of 12,052 people across Iran so far.
Despite all experts’ warnings, there are whispers of reopening medical universities after Ramadan, May 26. The Deputy Health Minister, Harirchi, has warned not to open the universities. The situation is much worse than we are let to believe, even one official can’t agree with the other!
On the other hand, while Rouhani insists there is no shortage of anything, Iran International reports there is shortage of COVID-19 test kits in Mazandaran. It published a letter from Mazandaran Lab Workers Association showing Mazandaran healthcare staff and laboratories are in dire need of test kits but according to the president and other officials, Iran could “export test kits.”
Under the post related to Jahanpur’s conference on Tabnak, a pro-regime news agency’s website, many ordinary citizens have voiced their disgust for the hiding and lying of the government. Two of them were particularly interesting:
“Health Minister, don’t blame others. In a small town with 300,000 residents, there are 1-2 dead due to Coronavirus. If Iran has 300 cities, and we include Tehran as a city with 300,000 residents, there are at least 300 dead every day. We don’t argue that the healthcare staff have to report the deaths as a result of “heart attack or ARDS” so you could win the contest against the “enemy” US and EU. Your numbers are fake. 99% of the people don’t believe you and your statistics.”
Another one writes: “I don’t think counting deaths due to Corona needs a special set of skills! Why the government and the ministry take it so personally?! Nobody believes these numbers when we can see the similar problem in other countries. Unfortunately, we’re not aliens nor superman that the virus affects us Iranians so ineffective! We didn’t have any quarantine or lockdowns either. People have to go to work too. Alcohol and mask have been scarce during all this time. So what preventative measure has been done for us to believe this low number of daily deaths?! I don’t know why they lash out at everybody that this stat is correct and God’s whisper.”
While everybody is focused on a possibility of direct conflict between US and Iran in Persian Gulf or other southern waters of the country, Iranians are in need of honesty and a regime change. Enough propaganda games!