Saeed Namaki attributing slight decline in the number of cases and deaths in the Ministry of Health’s manipulated data to his brilliant plans and “martyr Soleimani plan,” but if there is any problem, people are to blame! The Health Minister reiterated his lie about US sanctions preventing regime from importing COVID-19 vaccine! He said, “despite lies, we have problems paying for the vaccine!” However, Naser Riahi, head of Iran Drug Importers Union clearly refuted Namaki’s claim saying, “There’s no problem with paying for medicines or vaccine. We purchase millions of dollars of medicines on a daily basis from American and European companies. If we couldn’t do so, there would be a catastrophe in Iran.”
The controversies surrounding COVID-19 vaccine continues by Islamic Republic FDA announcing a tender offer for importing companies to place their bids on plans to import the vaccine. Saeed Namaki claimed millions of doses have been pre-ordered days ago!
Saeed Namaki made another claim which isn’t supported even with their own statistics! He said COVID-19 deaths have decreased by 40% in the past 3 weeks compared to weeks before. While he didn’t give a clear reference on his comparison, based on the Minstry’s data, the average number of daily deaths in Iran was 451.6 from November 1 to November 20! November 21 the 2-week “lockdown” plan began, and till December 10, the average daily deaths reached 380! How that adds up to be 40% decline is not understandable. Iraj Harirchi, Deputy Health Minister, made the same claim about number of cases! He said 32% decrease in number of daily cases has been observed compared to “several weeks before.” In the same period comparison, the average daily cases has actually increased from 10,780 to 12,732!
All these controversial comments while health experts believe the “lockdown” or any other measure’s effects will be seen in 3-4 weeks from the measure implementation.
Sima Sadat Lari reported 284 deaths and 10,403 positive coronavirus tests in the past 24 hours in Iran! She announced 34 red counties, 260 orange and 154 yellow, a significant change from the day before. While the Ministry of Health claimed provincial officials would have the authority to announce their province’s “color”, Mashhad Governor said, “the change in color of the city to orange has not been ordered yet.”
Like all other statistics, active cases are on a sharp decline which doesn’t align with the local reports or history of the disease and previous COVID-19 waves! Testing remains in the same range. Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) and graphs depict the ongoing crisis in the country for 10 months.
R0: 4.55
Total: 1,083,023 (+10,403)
Dead: 51,496 (+284)
Recovered: 778,167
Critical: 5,768 (-11)
Admitted: 253,360 (-2,402)
Tests: 6,568,472 (7.9% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Mohammad Mohsenzadeh
