Sima Sadat Lari attended her daily charade and announced 2,247 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 165 deaths in the past 24 hours. The stats provided by Islamic Republic have been widely challenged, discredited, and scrutinized throughout the 6 months since officials have announced the novel coronavirus outbreak in the country. The Ministry of Health Spokesperson also named the same 26 provinces in red or alarming situation as the past few weeks. Some provinces such as Fars and Alborz report decline in their cases, however, Shiraz metropolis, Fars capital and its biggest city, remains in red status. In the meantime, Gilan and Qom officials, the first two epicenters of the pandemic in Iran, report soaring of cases in their provinces and warn people to follow the health protocols!
Tehran province, the hub of everything, remains in red status. Tehran province reports 7% decrease in number of cases. However, since officials don’t report the numbers separately for each province or city on a daily basis, it’s almost impossible to assess the truth about what Zali has reported. Dr Zali, head of Tehran metropolitan Corona Combating Committee, also said it looks like the restrictions in Tehran should be renewed for another 2 weeks, until early September! But it’s highly unlikely that would happen, because Moharram starts on August 20, the end of this week and right when the current restrictions would expire. Every single high ranking official in the country has reiterated nothing would stop Moharram mourning ceremonies, despite all warnings from experts that healthcare system can’t handle another surge in cases in the country.
Rouhani keeps lying without hesitation! In a meeting with IRIB managers, he denied any shortages in the country during COVID-19 crisis and said everything has been readily available!! We have reported on shortages of masks, medical supplies, hospital beds, ICU beds, and healthcare staff across the country, even sometimes from officials’ mouths! It seems like he thinks if he doesn’t lie for a day, a catastrophe might happen, while in fact, his lies are the cause of people’s problems!
On a side note, Ahmad Tavakoli, member of Expediency Council and a former “parliament representative”, made it clear that people don’t trust anything officials say because “we’ve lied to people for so many years and now they think we cry wolf whatever we say.” He admitted to the nationwide mistrust between people and the ruling regime, saying “we should do something big that people don’t think can happen in Islamic Republic.” However, that mistrust has caused the majority of people to believe exactly the opposite of what the officials say, the situation is no different in COVID-19 crisis, because everything they’ve said since the beginning, been proven wrong and a lie a few days/weeks/months later, it’s just a matter of time!
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) and graphs continue to point us towards the highly fragile situation in Iran where there is no plan to control the deadly virus, but officials hopes that it would vanish for itself while people are dying on large scales every day! The number of critical patients has decreased significantly from yesterday! Either most dead were from that category or Islamic Republic has found the cure for novel coronavirus!
R0: 1.43
Total: 345,450 (+2,247)
Dead: 19,804 (+165)
Healed: 299,157
Critical: 3,773 (-108)
Admitted: 26,489 (+411)
Tests: 2,887,938
