Khuzestan remains in critical condition, Kurdistan is grappling with the novel coronavirus and Hormozgan doesn’t have enough beds. Kurdistan Governor has requested permission from the National Task Force to reimpose restrictions in several cities including Sanandaj, the capital, and Saqqez. He voiced his concern over insensitivity of people to seriousness of COVID-19 and said they must be reminded. He also said the hospitals are at full capacity in Saqqez and Sanandaj.
In the meantime, Chabahar, southern city in Sistan-Baluchestan, has made it mandatory to wear mask in the open market. The officials are worried about the surge in number of cases in the whole country. Head of Chabahar Health Network said they’re not capable of taking any patient from outside the city since the supplies, hospital beds and equipment may barely suffice to take care of Chabahar residents. He said free traveling in and out of provinces is one of the risky behaviors seen today. He continued, “Contracting the disease must not become a stigma and everybody with symptoms must report his/her case immediately.” He added it’s better if people don’t gather in mosques,… and stay home as much as they can. However, he stopped short of blaming the government for encouraging people to go to mosque!
Kerman is another province in trouble but its name keeps dropping out and added to the list of “alarming” provinces every other day! The officials say the directives by National Task Force is confusing and they don’t know who is responsible to oversee the execution of the orders. For example, they don’t know who should supervise gas pumps to follow health instructions! The Medical University officials say it’s the Governor’s office job and the Governor office blames the University. This chaos has led to nobody doing this simple task and the virus spreads even more!
Alamol Hoda, Mashhad’s Friday Prayer Imam and representative of Khamenei in the second biggest city in the country said, “Corona has made the economical situation critical and until the holy shrine is not reopened, we can’t go back to normal.” Apparently, he’s used to a certain life style and it’s difficult for him to stop talking nonsense for a few months! It’s worth mentioning, he’s one of the most outspoken critics of anybody who says Khamenei is anything short of “God’s representative on earth”, he believes anything should be done to protect the regime including killing innocent dissents, just for expressing their opinions!
Today’s numbers show another surge of active cases, critical cases, confirmed cases and anything else even in the fake and manipulated numbers provided by Sima Lari, the Ministry of Health’s new puppet. At least, today’s press release went without a hitch or any other blunder! She announced, 2,369 new cases and 75 deaths since yesterday while Khuzestan, Kurdistan, Hormozgan, East Azerbaijan and Lorestan are in “red” or “alarming” situation. Kerman, Kermanshah, West Azerbaijan, Bushehr, Sistan-Baluchestan, Khorasan Razavi have suddenly been able to control their crisis from yesterday and a couple days before that, and according to Lari, are not in a bad situation, contrary to reports from their Governors and other officials. Fooling the mass population through state-owned media have always been a rather successful strategy for the Islamic Republic regime! But that’s not going to last, people are losing their loved ones and propaganda may not work, just like it hadn’t for other dictatorships throughout history. Basic reproduction rate (R0) and growth factors remain above 1.
R0: 1.26
Total: 182,545 (+2,369)
Dead: 8,659 (+75)
Healed: 144,649
Critical: 2,739 (+11)
Admitted: 29,237 (+308)
Tests: 1,196,947 (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)
