The Delta (Indian) variant of coronavirus is sweeping through the country while Islamic Republic officials do not even implement their own restrictions. Everything is out of control. Sistan-Baluchestan continues to struggle and after some media attention Islamic Republic officials started using the misery of people as a propaganda machine. Chabahar representative at Islamic Consultative Assembly confirmed our report about forceful and early discharge of critical patients due to Health Minister’s visit! Now, Hormozgan is going through the same catastrophe. According to the Governor, field hospitals must be erected in Hormozgan at once. Hemmati says hospitals are filled with COVID-19 patients, cases and death toll on the rise.
Chairman of Tehran Corona Combating Committee admits the gloomy situation in the capital will not have any resolution for at least another 2 weeks. Dr. Zali predicted the rising cases and hospitalizations will continue. Dr. Tabarsi, head of Infectious-ward at Masih Daneshvari hospital in Tehran, rebuked the government for not enforcing the restrictions and said the highly contagious Delta variant will continue to break all records. He also admitted the current vaccines in Iran are not that effective against this strain and preventive protocols are the only option. Tabarsi predicted death toll will go up by the end of this week.
Other provinces, such as Kerman, Bushehr, Fars, Zanjan, Qazvin, Isfahan, Yazd, Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari… are experiencing the fifth wave of COVID-19 with Delta variant. Officials admit 25 of 31 provinces are in the midst of rising cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Ministry of Health announced total of 7,271,368 shots have been administered in Iran since February 9, 2021 and only 2,169,067 are fully vaccinated. The gap between 1 and 2 doses keeps growing by the day.
On the other hand, Mr. Health Minister spouted off about “breaking vaccination records” in the next 1-2 days by 400-500thousand doses being administered! Besides the fact that after 17 months it is not an accomplishment, but only 1 jab is not effective against the wild Delta, especially with the current vaccines used in Iran, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Sputnik V and COVIran Barekat (unproven domestic one).
According to Japanese officials, they are donating 11 million doses of AstraZeneca to 15 countries including Fiji and Iran through WHO’s COVAX program which 2.9million may be sent to Iran. However, Islamic Republic authorities would like to use their propaganda network to make that an achievement of their “foreign diplomacy!”
CEO of “Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order”, manufacturer of COVIran Barekat vaccine, made another bold claim even after their previous false promises and mishaps. Mokhber claimed from July 23, they would deliver 1.2million doses to the Ministry of Health every week! It is worth noting, the “homegrown” vaccine has been criticized for not publishing its results as of yet, not finished its third phase of clinical trials and its parent company is owned by the “Supreme Leader.” Despite all that, it has received “emergency use” approval and is administered across the country.
Ministry of Health Spokesperson presented her daily manipulated data which are discredited by the Iran Medical Board, they believe the real numbers are at least 3 times higher. Sima Sadat Lari claimed 166 died of COVID-19 in Iran in the past 24 hours and 22,750 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. As the graphs illustrate, active and critical cases continue to rise, positivity rate reached 29.62% and daily PCR testing declined.
R0: 2.83
Total: 3,417,029 (+22,750)
Dead: 86,207 (+166)
Recovered: 3,056,160
Critical: 3,866 (+76)
Active Cases: 274,662 (+7,965)
Tests: 24,671,220 (29.3% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Hadi Zand