State-owned media are beside themselves about “declining number of deaths” referring to 2-day decrease in daily death tolls while there is no sign of change in crisis. Sima Sadat Lari announced 2,697 new cases and 185 deaths in the past 24 hours and the same 26 provinces remain in red and alarming status. In the meantime, Deputy Head of Iran Medical Council admitted the soar in critical patients and shortage of ICU beds across the country. He said most people coming to hospitals are in critical condition. Dr. Salimi added the shortage of ICU nurses is one of the main problems in hospitals. He said there are some healthcare staff who haven’t left the hospital for 21 straight days!
Qom is once again becoming an epicenter of COVID-19 with its main hospital, Kamkar, at full capacity. There are 355 COVID-19 patients in this hospital alone whom 70 of them are critical. Not all critical patients are given an ICU bed due to the shortage, as Dr Salimi said, physicians have to choose based on clinical signs and age who gets to be admitted to ICU. Rouhani and other officials have been bragging about “empty beds and ICU wards” early during the epidemic, but never thought of increasing the capacity in hospitals. Despite all the shortages going on in the country, including food, simple masks, protective gears and some medications, Islamic Republic has already sent 9 tons of food, medical supplies and 22 healthcare staff to Lebanon after the massive blast, yesterday.
There’s not a day without Moharram in the news, as it’s the most important propaganda machine of Islamic Republic and main source of income for orators and mullahs close to the regime! Deputy Health Minister, Iraj Harirchi, said on TV that 80,000 active “heyats” in the country. Heyats are the gathering of mourners in a specific place. He said, 8,000 observers from Ministry of Health would be supervising the implementation of protocols! Protocols asking people to have 1.5meters distance in all directions from others, which is practically impossible. While Harirchi says even 1 person sick in “mourning ceremonies” would be the “red line”, on average, more than 200 people a day are dying and that’s not considered a “red line”!
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) and graphs continue to be the best indicators in showing the magnitude of the crisis in Iran, even if they’re based on fake and highly manipulated data by regime’s Ministry of Health.
R0: 1.42
Total: 317,483 (+2,697)
Dead: 17,802 (+185)
Healed: 274,932
Critical: 4,129 (-3)
Admitted: 24,749 (+115)
Tests: 2,587,083
