The novel coronavirus crisis has overwhelmed the healthcare system including physicians, nurses, and other staff. Many have lost their jobs and after 116 days of working multiple shifts in a row, they don’t have much to offer but still are at the front line of combating the disease by taking care of the many patients pouring into the hospitals all over the country. There’s nothing the government can do to repay for their sacrifices. But wait, there’s something the Islamic Republic is doing to return the favor, it’s not paying the nurses, it begged some nurses to come to public hospitals with an 89-day contract with the promise of permanent employment but gave them the boots when it was time, and so on! Everything possible to disappoint any human being to do their job but healthcare staff are still helping their patients.
It’s the third day in a row with more than 100 deaths and a surge in number of infections. The officials are all raising their concerns by saying people must understand this is not going to end well if they don’t follow the health instructions including wearing mask in public and social distancing. But the problem is, Rouhani and other officials have repeatedly gloated about how wonderful they had controlled the disease which led to sudden reopening of businesses on April 11, coloring of the map with “White, Yellow and Red” to signal how dangerous each city/county is and then all travel restrictions were lifted. Mosques reopened, Eid Fitr Prayer was held all across the country, and now Friday Prayers are back in all “yellow” areas, including the capital, Tehran, from June 26. Many experts warned this would cause normalization of the situation and we have written reports about it.
Bushehr Lieutenant Governor says one of the problems is the Ministry of Health not letting provinces to announce their stats. “If we could announce our stats, people would see what’s going on and would be scared enough to follow the instructions. What the Ministry says is not God-sent. If people knew we’ve had new infections in the past week equal to 4 months from the onset of epidemic, they’d know it’s serious.” He should know if that happens, many discrepancies will occur leading to many questions and panic among people rather than “enough scare”. He warned Bushehr residents that the province is on its way to become another Khuzestan.
Khuzestan’s current situation is very similar with the chaos and uncertainty Qom faced at the beginning of the epidemic. All beds are occupied and new patients have nowhere to go to be take care of. Kermanshah announced its critical condition and said its tourism attractions are closed to travelers. The officials also said the hospitals are close to full capacity. They also stated 80-100 daily new admissions and stay at hospitals an average of 6 days. Just like Hormozgan which until last night had its hospital beds at 80% capacity, and its death toll had increased three fold in the past 2 weeks.
With the crisis reaching its peak in Khuzestan, Hormozgan, Kermanshah, Kurdistan, East & West Azerbaijan, Khorasan Razavi, Lorestan, Golestan, and Sistan-Baluchestan, according to Sima Sadat Lari, the Deputy Health Minister, Iraj Harirchi, warned Iranians that all restrictions may be reimposed. He said, “The epidemic is on an uptrend and Ministry is asking for reimposing restrictions. We are not past the first peak yet. People must not think anything is over.” Ministry of Health is supposedly the integral part of National Corona Combating Task Force and all its directives must be followed, even Khamenei had said so but they keep “warning” people instead of “doing” something, or just keep reopening more businesses, for example, Public Libraries resume their activities from June 26 across the country!
2,563 new cases and 115 deaths were confirmed since yesterday which means another increase in everything! Graphs, basic reproduction rate (R0) and growth factors are indicative of the crisis.
R0: 1.26
Total: 192,439 (+2,563)
Dead: 9,065 (+115)
Healed: 152,675
Critical: 2,815 (+50)
Admitted: 30,699 (+363)
Tests: 1,293,609 (Number of labs wasn’t mentioned in today’s news. Officials may have finally figured out there are discrepancies when they lie.)
