Number of deaths and critical cases across the country are on the rise. Healthcare staff and hospitals resources are exhausted. Some provinces and cities have requested the National Task Force to reimpose some restrictions and their requests are still on hold! Fridays are weekend in Iran, therefore, nothing has changed since yesterday and tomorrow the National Task Force will convene their weekly meeting to decide what to do to control the unbridled coronavirus. In the meantime, Sima Sadat Lari, the Ministry of Health Spokesperson, announced 154 more deaths and 2,566 new cases have been confirmed in the past 24 hours. The number of daily tests continue to decline and the circle of people eligible to even take the PCR test is getting smaller by the day.
Almost all provinces in the country are in critical condition or closing in! According to Lari Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khorasan Razavi and Ilam are red while Tehran, Fars, Mazandaran, Alborz, Hamedan, Sistan-Baluchestan and Zanjan are in an alarming status. The pattern continues and the Spokesperson omits some provinces from previous days while adding new ones, as if the situation has changed suddenly in those locations. For example, Kerman, Isfahan, South Khorasan, North Khorasan, Lorestan, East & West Azerbaijan, Golestan, and Ardebil have been deleted from the red or alarming lists! The provincial officials mention the horrific situation in their cities on local news channels but people from the rest of the country wouldn’t know when the Ministry chooses to lie about a specific set of provinces.
Moreover, the so-called “red” provinces are in dire need of fresh healthcare staff and supplies. In Zanjan, medical students have started to go among people in their protection gears, holding signs saying: “There’s no more beds available in the hospital”, “Corona doesn’t have a specific medicine or treatment”, Corona has a bitter ending if we don’t prevent it”, to act like a wake-up call for people roaming around in the city! In the meantime, Bushehr announced a week closure for gyms, hair salons, movie theaters, coffee shops, theme parks, private education institutions, schools, universities, wedding venues, and some other high risk businesses, from tomorrow. On the other hand, deputy Health Minister in Treatment Affairs warned everybody that he’s more worried about “white” zones because the fast spread of the virus could shock and overwhelm people and healthcare system in those areas. Despite most of the country being in critical situation, the government hasn’t implemented any kind of travel restrictions, locally or between provinces, making the situation even worse, just a repetition of what happened in late February-early March: lying, covering up, no plan, loads of ifs, buts and waiting for a miracle! Islamic Republic has never learned from its mistakes!
The data provided by the Ministry of Health has been scrutinized since day 1. They’re fake, manipulated and do not reflect the simplest facts on the ground. But since Islamic Republic is the only source for stats, and other media outlets with considerable resources such as Iran International, have decided to ignore coronavirus news, we have created graphs and calculated the basic reproduction rate (R0), showing that even based on those data, the crisis in Iran has never slowed down and these days were predicted and preventable.
R0: 1.28
Total: 235,429 (+2,566)
Dead: 11,260 (+154)
Healed: 196,446
Critical: 3,123 (+26)
Admitted: 27,723 (+64)
Tests: 1,744,958 (Number of labs wasn’t mentioned in today’s news. Officials may have finally figured out there are discrepancies when they lie.)
