While Sima Sadat Lari announced her undercounted, widely scrutinized numbers for the past 24 hours, Dr Zali, head of Tehran Corona Combating Committee was telling people to be prepared for a third wave of the novel coronavirus in the fall! He said the healthcare system cannot handle another wave and that’s why restrictions on schools and some businesses must be extended as concurrent flu, allergies, asthma and COVID-19 would ruin anything left of the already weakened healthcare system and the staff!
On the other hand, Raisi, Deputy Health Minister in Health Affairs, participated in a relatively long online press conference reminding of the first few months of the pandemic where every day an official would answer questions, but after a while that stopped and people were kept even more in the dark! Today, however, Raisi explained the “strict protocols” for Konkour and how the Ministry is trying to keep everybody safe, from online screening before and after the exam, separating candidates with symptoms, and having a few students who are diagnosed to take the exam at a specified location separate from others.
Deputy Health Minister also emphasized on Moharram and how people should avoid gatherings as much as they can! He said the best place is at home during mourning. But he and everybody else knows, the religious nuts won’t listen to any warning and think Hossein is the healer! So he continued by saying “There must not be any gathering indoors.” Again, that’s not possible either, as part of the ritual is to attend at “Hossiniyehs” which are all indoors! Raisi also commented on vaccines. He said the Iranian vaccine is currently in the animal phase and may be ready by November 2021! That’s quite a different phase from what Saeed Namaki, Health Minister, had said before that it’s ready for human trials and could be ready “soon”. The rebranding of Russian vaccine to test on Iranians sounds more plausible by day, since Islamic Republic has no plan to contain the virus and can’t face another nationwide uprising like November 2019, it needs a miracle!
Otherwise, all the theocratic regime knows is oppression! According to Isfahan Police Chief, 3 people have been arrested on the charges of taking photos and videos of mosques and religious locations to show these places are the reason for spreading the novel coronavirus! He claimed one of them sent the videos to BBC and an “agency in Georgia”! This is how the information and stats are controlled, the world can hear what Islamic Republic wants!
Sadat Lari announced 2,385 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 168 deaths since yesterday have been recorded. Critical cases have increased significantly since yesterday. Although the officials are all happy about the decline in trend “due to people following protocols”, since they don’t provide provincial stats since March 22, there’s no way to assess each province’s status. However, Ministry of Health Spokesperson mentioned the same 25 provinces in critical condition but claimed the walk-ins have decreased! Graphs of their own discredited stats show a different story, though!
R0: 1.43
Total: 347,835 (+2,385)
Dead: 19,972 (+168)
Healed: 300,881
Critical: 3,882 (+109)
Admitted: 26,982 (+493)
Tests: 2,914,049
