Thursday and Friday is weekend in Iran and as discussed before, in their attempt to normalizing of death and pretending everything is fine, there was no “press conference” for today. Jahanpur only announced 983 new confirmed cases and 71 deaths. On the other hand, Rouhani was praising his administration for standing by people and doing “fantastically” fighting the virus in an opening ceremony of some projects in commemoration of world labor day!
As usual, you could find plenty contradictory and appalling statements in his speech. For example, he said, “We know this year is a very hard and difficult year and we know that many people including laborers are under a lot of pressure.” In another part of his speech he said, “The Central Bank’s report shows people’s savings have increased in the banks”!!! People are dying of poverty and the majority don’t even have any kind of savings accounts.
Many have lost their jobs and the “unemployment insurance” was supposed to cover them. A website was designed for the unemployed to sign up for the benefit. Today Rouhani said, “The Labor Minister has told me that many have decided to exit the program and many don’t want to sign up because they’re back to their own jobs.” However, the truth is, the website doesn’t work and is not available for registrations!
He also continued the same narrative that he’s been pushing for the past 40 days!! He’s been saying the COVID-19 cases is declining in Iran which is not true. The median estimate for basic reproduction rate is 1.17 and growth factors remain above 1. Those mean there is nothing slowing down the disease while all experts and many officials have warned about the upcoming catastrophe! The Ministry of Health keeps the mortality rate around 7.5% to match Rouhani’s wish.
Reproduction Rate (R0): 1.17
Total: 94,640
Dead: 6,028
Healed: 75,103
Critical: 2,965
Admitted: 13,509
Tests: 463,295 at 130 labs
Iran International Death Toll: 13,193 (Last updated on April 25)