Dr Sima Sadaat Laari started her second day as the new Ministry of Health Spokesperson with a big change. Some changes were expected but frankly, not as fast as this, and not as drastic as this! She omitted the number of critical patients as it’s been done by Jahanpur since April 10! This could be the beginning of another round of cover-ups and lies. Laari’s career has received outside help to climb up the ambition ladder very quickly. She’s a dentist who is a faculty member of radiology department in Hamedan Medical University and became Deputy Health Minister in Cultural and Student Affairs last year. She immediately proposed many restrictions and suffocating changes into students lives. One of them was that any news going out of the campus and/or hospitals which would lead to complaints, will have serious consequences for the person leaking it. She also made “Islamic medicine” a compulsory credit for all medicine, dentistry and pharmacy students. It definitely pays to be her husband. A few months after her promotion, Hassan Zaeri Lotf was appointed as the head of Cultural Center for the same organization as his wife, of course, with Laari’s signature. She seems like a typical member of the Islamic Republic’s intelligence community who also knows how to use the perks of her position!
In the meantime, Dr Zali, head of Tehran’s Corona Combating Committee sent a letter to Namaki, Health Minister, asking for the maximum withdrawal limit from banks to be increased again in order to decrease the number of people going to banks. He hopes this would help in decreasing the spread of the virus. COVID-19 patients are increasing in many provinces and Tehran, as the capital, is the hub for many businesses, and government affairs so traveling is inevitable to/from other cities and provinces, leading to a boom in cases across the country.
Dr Tabarsi, head of Infectious Diseases ward in Masih Daneshvari hospital in Tehran, confirms the soar in cases and said, “The main reason is free traveling across the country during holidays.” He continued, “We had about 250 admitted patients during March-April which dropped to about 70 in May but now it’s back up to about 180. We had to designate a full ward to COVID-19 patients again.” He added, “Coronavirus’s virulence has not changed and it’s still very dangerous. Some may say it’s weakened but this claim has no basis. You shouldn’t relate the number of deaths to the number of infected, but it must be considered against the number of active cases admitted in hospitals. That would show that it hasn’t changed its behavior.” Mostly likely, Dr Tabarsi was referring to what Haghdoost and Mostafavi had said in the past 2 days, claiming pathogenicity of the virus has decreased.
Dr Tabarsi went on to criticize the premature reopening of the country and lifting all restrictions suddenly. He said, “Unfortunately when restrictions are lifted and we say it’s OK to go back to your normal life, it leads to normalization of the virus as well, therefore people may not take it as seriously as before.” He continued, “We’re still in the first peak, the numbers and deaths have not come down too much to consider this wave as the second wave. If people don’t follow the health instructions, we’re headed for a far worse situation in near future.”
On the other hand, Friday Prayers Policy-making Council announced that if the Imams think everything is OK according to health directives to hold Friday prayers in yellow areas, they don’t have to wait till June 21, and can hold the prayers from Friday, June 12. Rouhani and the National Corona Combating Task Force had said June 19 Friday Prayers could resume in “yellow” zones. In its statement, the Council also says, “If the situation is not ready, the definite date to resume prayers is June 26.” Meaning, regardless of what happens, June 26, Friday Prayers must be held in Yellow areas. This Council is directly under supervision of Khamenei, and the “Friday Imams” regurgitate what Khamenei wants every week. Coronavirus has caused the prayers to be canceled across the country for more than 3 months.
2,011 new cases and 81 deaths were confirmed since yesterday and head of Research Center for Emerging and Recurring Diseases of Pasteur Institute predicts the number of deaths could increase because the number of cases is going up. Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) and growth factors have been indicating the ongoing coronavirus crisis since the beginning of the epidemic in Iran, even based on the Islamic Republic’s fake and manipulated numbers. But regime’s top officials including Khamenei, Rouhani and IRGC intelligence try to induce everything is normal to prevent any uprising due to devastating living conditions in the country.
R0: 1.25
Total: 177,938 (+2,011)
Dead: 8,506 (+81)
Healed: 140,590
Critical: 2,639 (Updated June 9, 2020)
Admitted: 28,842 (-203)
Tests: 1,151,601 (Number of labs wasn’t mentioned in today’s news. Officials may have finally figured out there are discrepancies when they lie.)
Iran International Death Toll: 13,193 (Last updated on April 25)
