With most news focused on Soleimani’s death anniversary and how Islamic Republic will “avenge” his death, Sima Sadat Lari expressed her concern over increasing number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Mazandaran, north of Iran. According to her, 4 of the counties in the province are red but she predicted that more and more counties will become red as time passes. In the meantime, she presented her daily undercounted data. The Ministry of Health Spokesperson reported 114 deaths in the past 24 hours in Iran while 6,286 tested positive for coronavirus.
Provincial officials continue to warn against lax restrictions and religious gatherings such as Friday Prayers. The COVID-19 vaccine dilemma continues. Some reports claimed “the first shipment of coronavirus vaccines entered Iran from South Korea.” These rumors were immediately denied by FDA officials! However, one said “the shipment was flu vaccine not coronavirus,” while the FDA Spokesman said, “There has been no shipment of vaccines from any country to Iran.”
Graphs show daily tests have decreased significantly compared to yesterday despite officials promising they would rise to 100,000 a day. The manipulated data of Ministry of Health show a sharp decline in all metrics which is not seen anywhere else in the world!
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) remains at 4.32, which shows the devastating and fragile situation in Iran. Islamic Republic keeps on waiting for a vaccine. But, IRGC stirs up the conspiracy theories that the novel coronavirus was spread to wipe out 20% of world’s population, therefore, “we shouldn’t trust any foreign vaccines.” Naghdi, Deputy Coordinator of IRGC says, “According to the documents, these entities have polluted the virus.” They suggest Iranians should wait for a domestic version of it which may not be available for another 7-8 months, optimistically.
R0: 4.32
Total: 1,231,429 (+6,286)
Dead: 55,337 (+114)
Recovered: 995,570
Critical: 5,013 (-26)
Admitted: 180,522 (-564)
Tests: 7,670,268 (9.2% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Amin Ahoi
