As if the novel coronavirus has been contained completely, all focus of the Islamic Republic officials have been on Yalda night and how to make people sit at home! At the same time, religious gatherings such as Friday Prayers are business as usual. Rouhani even talked about “mourning of Fatemieh Days” and how to hold them with “following health protocols,” that’s 10 days of crowded gatherings. Exactly like what they decided during Muharram which led to unleashed infections across Iran.
National Task Force convened their weekly meeting but as usual, had no real outcome! Rouhani spoke about “Fatemieh Days,” mourning of Muhammad’s daughter death, who in Shia beliefs is one of the most sacred personas!
State-controlled media reported online education in Tehran will be on hold on Saturday and Sunday, without giving any detail or reason. In the meantime, Raisi, National Task Force Spokesman, denied the reports saying, “we didn’t pass such protocol in the Task Force, we don’t know where this plan comes from.” That’s another example of how Islamic Republic runs the country, one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing.
Sima Sadat Lari presented her daily manipulated data with 6,221 new coronavirus infections while 175 died of COVID-19 in Iran in the past 24 hours. Daily testing reached 50,000 range. The Ministry of Health Spokesperson announced 0 “red” city in the country for the first time since the map “coloring” began in March 2020. According to her, 205 counties are in “orange” and 243 are in “yellow” status.
While officials keep attributing the sharp decline in number of cases and deaths to the recent lockdowns across the country, health experts continue to warn about resurgence of the virus in the upcoming winter. Islamic Republic officials are waiting for miracle of vaccine in the upcoming months. Head of Tabriz Medical University said “we should encourage hope into people that vaccine is coming, and with a few months of self-care, we could pass the crisis.” It’s been more than 10 months that Iran has been in the most devastating situation with COVID-19 ravaging through the country.
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) and graphs continue to be best indicators of the nonstop human catastrophe.
R0: 4.44
Total: 1,152,072 (+6,221)
Dead: 53,448 (+175)
Recovered: 875,943
Critical: 5,591 (-36)
Admitted: 222,681 (-4,223)
Tests: 6,995,726 (8.4% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Alireza Ramezani
