Islamic Republic Health Minister admits Iran is on the accelerated pace of the fifth wave of coronavirus and Delta variant is very difficult to control if compliance with COVID-19 protocols is not increased. Immediately after, he claimed “the world is astonished at how we have controlled the virus and developed several vaccines in various platforms!” The “homegrown vaccines” Saeed Namaki referred to do not exist. Only COVIran Barekat, based on some evidence a rebrand of Chinese Sinopharm, is being used in Iran, which is also way behind its production schedule! Namaki once again admired IRGC for its services during the epidemic and praised “Noora” vaccine which was unveiled a few weeks ago, another “discovery” by developers of “Mostaan 110!”
Meanwhile, Tehran has more than 9,700 hospitalized, hospitals are at full capacity and Tehran City Council has just approved a plan to develop new cemetery in the capital, because it will be full in 3 years! Dr Talebpour, head of Sina hospital in Tehran, warned about high load of the disease which is 3-4 times more than the previous wave and predicted “patients will be behind hospital doors soon!” According to some reports, 30million Toman is the price of an empty bed in some hospitals if you can find the right person! Babol Medical Council issued a statement warning residents not to attend any gathering, “number of critical patients waiting for beds will increase!”
Kermanshah is on the same boat, while Gilan reported 300 hospitalizations in 24hours and total number of admitted patients in 4-digit territory. Head of Gilan Medical University warned about healthcare staff burnout and exhaustion. Khorasan Razavi also is experiencing an out-of-control Delta variant outbreak with exhausted healthcare staff. Fars’ daily death toll record is broken with 27 dead, “Fars is not well at all!” said Hosseini from Shiraz Medical University. Ardabil and other provinces do not have a better situation!
However, none of these dreadful reports stopped National COVID-19 Task Force Spokesman to proudly announce that “note it down, in November, we will have less than 50 deaths per day!” That is another 3 months of more than 200 deaths per day. Dr. Raisi spewed another “promise” that from Thursday many hazardous occupations including taxi and bus drivers can register for vaccination! He also claimed, once again, that by March 22, 2022, all eligible Iranians, more than 59 million, will be vaccinated. However, he forgot to mention that the current vaccines used in Iran are not that effective against Delta and 1 dose is not considered “vaccinated.” Islamic Republic officials have always referred to 1 dose as “vaccinated,” making up numbers and bragging about it!
According to the Ministry of Health data, since February 9 total of 10,971,009 shots have been administered while only 2,496,677 (2.97% of Iran population) are fully vaccinated with Sinopharm, Sputnik V, AstraZeneca and Covaxin. COVIran Barekat has been administered to more than 400,000 by July 23. Pasteur Institute Director claims 120,000 doses of PastoCoVac are delivered to the Ministry for use. PastoCoVac has been criticized by some officials alleging the regime has no right to its production in Iran. It is a rebrand of Cuban Soberana 02.
Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 34,951 tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Iran in the past 24 hours and 357 died of COVID-19, setting a new record for daily cases. However, even Iran Medical Board officials believe those numbers are at least 1/3 of the real figures. As the graphs illustrate, active and critical cases continue to rise while daily testing reduces. Positivity rate also broke the 17-month record and reached 52.65% for the past 24 hours.
R0: 2.92
Total: 3,758,197 (+34,951)
Dead: 89,479 (+357)
Recovered: 3,291,979
Critical: 5,100 (+118)
Active Cases: 376,739 (+16,961)
Tests: 25,667,604 (30.3% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
