After weeks of demands by health and medical experts to enforce a complete lock down across the country for at least 2 weeks, Islamic Republic COVID-19 Task Force decided to implement inter-provincial travel ban and close down almost all businesses including banks for 5 days, from August 16 to 21st! These restrictions do not include public transportation such as buses, trains or planes. On the other hand, 2 of those days were national holidays for Tasoua and Ashura (9th and 10th of Muharram, busiest days of gatherings) and 1 day was the weekend. The regime announced the exact same “lockdown” procedure during Eid Fitr which ended up with more travelings and an income source for the regime with hefty fines for the people who traveled. Provincial and health officials believe 5 days is not enough and may even exacerbate the Delta variant crisis in Iran.
Another achievement and act of the new Islamic Republic “president” in the fight against coronavirus pandemic was to take off Faviripavir from the list of insurance coverage for COVID-19 patients. Ebriahim Raisi has been visiting crowded lines and chaotic pharmacies distributing medications to COVID-19 patients, so he decided to cut everybody off to reduce crowds and therefore, less photos “embarrassing the sacred system!” Head of Qazvin Medical University reports “serious shortage of oxygen” and medicine, and a physician in Isfahan expresses his disappointment at scarcity of medicine, hospital beds, and exhaustion of healthcare staff.
Mashhad is going through hell. Every day, 100-110 die of COVID-19 in the city of Mashhad alone, according to manipulated data of Islamic Republic officials! Hospitals have to handle more than 7,000 daily outpatient cases, a number on the rise, of which north of 750 are hospitalized. The mortuary has become so crowded with piled up bodies that a special section will be designated for COVID-19 victims. An official admits that all positive tests in the second biggest city of Iran are as the result of Delta variant. Mashhad Medical Board, in a letter to officials, demanded the “Imam Reza Shrine” to be closed down and more oxygen, medication and vaccines be allocated to the city. “The situation is so dire that there is no other way but to close down every things!”
Tehran Cemetery (Behesht-e-Zahra) had never seen this many dead in one day. On August 13, the cemetery had 390 burials with 216 confirmed COVID-19 victims, setting a new record in its 51-year life. The officials say the number of young kids and adolescents they have to bury is staggering in the fifth wave. Hospitals are unable to cope with the flood of patients, there are waiting lists for ICU admissions!
In Rasht, Gilan province, patients are hooked up to divers’ oxygen tanks. Qazvin had to put beds in an indoor sport venue, Fars numbers continue to soar every day, Semnan predicts worse days ahead, Ardabil reports “beyond critical” situation, and Ilam announced 9 of its 12 counties are in “red” status. Dr. Moradi of Kermanshah Medical University warned about the increasing number of cases and rebuked the government for blackouts in vaccination centers. He said, “these blackouts will cause vaccines to go bad!”
While Ebrahim Raisi claims purchase of 30million doses of vaccines has been finalized, and National COVID-19 Task Force Spokesman claims 60 million doses will be imported by November, the shortage of vaccine is becoming more evident by the day. After Qazvin and Hormozgan in recent days, today, East Azerbaijan official admitted the reason for suspension or delayed vaccination across the province is Tehran delay in distribution! Previous empty promises are yet to be fulfilled. It is worth mentioning, the majority of vaccines used in Iran are the China’s Sinopharm.
On the other hand, Dr. Hosseini from Beheshti Medical University confessed that he had been warning the regime officials about the dangers of coronavirus since day one and Delta variant from months ago. He mentioned “black swans” and “dragon kings” formations were seen in the analysis of data but “nobody listened.” He urges officials to ask for help from other countries and import as many reliable vaccine as possible. Hosseini says Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca are the only ones that may help, and mentions Sinopharm may only be 50% effective against the Delta variant! He warned there is a small window that this might work, before many other developing countries reach this point. It is notable, Khamenei has banned importing of US and UK made vaccines.
According to the Ministry of Health, since February 9, total of 18,551,226 shots have been administered in Iran while only 3,813,628 (4.54% of population) received both shots of ineffective vaccines, Sinopharm, Sputnik V, COVIran Barekat, AstraZeneca and Covaxin.
Despite more than 111,000 discrepancy in the number of deaths provided by the Ministry of Health every day in the past 18 months with the real numbers on the ground, Sima Sadat Lari continues to announce her reports on a daily basis. She claimed 466 died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours in Iran and 29,700 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. As seen on the graphs, active and critical cases reach a new high every day.
R0: 3.08
Total: 4,389,085 (+29,700)
Dead: 97,208 (+466)
Recovered: 3,700,828
Critical: 7,252 (+98)
Active Cases: 591,049 (+2,935)
Total Tests: 27,078,261
