Delta variant keeps breaking records and Islamic Republic officials keep sitting on their hands. Following Interior Minister’s request to lockdown Tehran for additional 3 days preceding and following Eid al-Ahda on July 21, all governmental offices, banks,… are closed until next Monday, for 6 days. The supposed lockdown was announced in advance and as predicted, the flood of travelers swarmed the roads. On the other hand, despite Police warnings that all COVID-19 restrictions would be enforced across the country and no non-resident car is allowed in or out of “red” cities, the traffics show a different story. Additionally, the buses and other forms of public transports are allowed across all Iran.
Chairman of Tehran Corona Combating Committee reported more than 8,000 COVID-19 hospitalized patients and north of 20,000 outpatients in the capital, a record since the epidemic began 17 months ago! Dr. Zali also reported 92 deaths in the past 24 hours in Tehran. Hormozgan officials announce steep rise in cases and deaths in the province. Kohgiloyeh Governor in Kohgiloyeh-Boyerahmad province said the hospital in Dehdasht is outdated and fans are used instead of proper ventilation, making everything worse. Fars hospitals are on full alert and all leaves have been canceled. Deputy Health Minister in Treatment Affairs sent a letter to all medical universities across Iran, canceling healthcare staff leaves for 2 weeks.
Meanwhile, COVID-19 vaccination process continues in chaos. On the one hand, Saeed Namaki claims the process is smooth, on the other hand, asks police to be present at the centers to keep order! Videos on social media show the long and disorganized lines in vaccination centers.
According to Ministry of Health, since February 9, total of 8,818,372 shots have been administered and only 2,289,059 (2.72% of Iran population) have received both shots of AstraZeneca, Covaxin, Sputnik V or Sinopharm. COVIran Barekat has been added to the pipeline, mostly used on ordinary citizens. Dr. Kermanpour, Iran Medical Board Spokesman, confirms the inefficacy of these vaccines against Delta variant, which is the dominant strain in the country. He said there is no study or statistics of the breakthrough cases. He also reported 10% of healthcare staff in Tehran have not received any dose yet. Qom officials report the same while Razi hospital in Ahvaz, Khuzestan reiterate several nurses have not been vaccinated yet!
Considering the Islamic Republic vaccination charade and the empty promises of officials in the past few months, National COVID-19 Task Force Spokesman admitted there would be no Sputnik V produced in Iran! He said, “Russia has given us a line which is useless!” However, today, FDA Spokesman tried his best to make excuses for Raisi, and said: “The headlines are incorrect. Dr. Raisi was talking about reasons of vaccination delays!”
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 213 died of COVID-19 in Iran in the past 24 hours and 25,441 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Iran Medical Board believes the real numbers are at least 3 times higher than the daily reports. Sima Sadat Lari did not mention any variant specific data. As seen on the graphs, active and critical cases continue to rise, daily PCR tests decline and positivity rate broke records by reaching 34.72%!
R0: 2.88
Total: 3,548,704 (+25,441)
Dead: 87,374 (+213)
Recovered: 3,152,653
Critical: 4,361 (+55)
Active Cases: 308,677 (+7,635)
Tests: 25,118,248 (29.9% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Majid Khahi
