“COVID-19 situation in Iran is very fragile and seventh wave may begin by mid to late April,” Dr. Souri warned. The former head of “rapid response team” of the Ministry of Health said if protocols are not followed and enforced during the Persian New Year Holidays, the next wave would hit Iran. He also cautioned about “the end of sixth wave”, saying there is “no active case finding” in the country and what is reported is like the “tip of an iceberg.” The epidemiologist expressed his worry about “slow decline in daily death toll”, admitting this shows no action was taken to effectively control the sixth wave.
Meanwhile, Islamic Republic officials in Mashhad, one of the hardest hit cities in the country and second major city in Iran, announced their readiness to receive “pilgrims” during the holidays. Last year, the same series of mistakes took place, leading to tsunami of deaths and cases across the country. Despite the officials claiming the sixth wave is over, the Ministry of Health updated the list of “very high risk areas” with 99 counties in “red”, 186 “orange” and 154 designated as “yellow.”
The Islamic Republic “Supreme Leader” banned the reliable US and UK made vaccines, leading to tsunami of deaths during Delta wave. Khamenei promoted his foundation’s shot, COVIran Barekat, which failed miserably. Multiple “homegrown” vaccines, including PastoCoVac, COVPars, Fakhra, Noora, Spikogen, never met the expectations and none of them has published their results or received recognition/approval from international health organizations.
According to official definition of “full vaccination” and Ministry of Health data, since February 9, only 24,794,304 (29.51% of Iran population) are vaccinated against COVID-19 with these vaccines. It is estimated that more than 53 million Iranians are at risk of contracting Omicron. The majority of shots used in Iran are the ineffective Sinopharm and COVIran Barekat. WHO recommends 3 doses of Sinopharm to be effective against Delta but studies have found the vaccine ineffective against Omicron.
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 139 have died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 3,953 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Number of daily tests performed in the country continue to decline despite experts advice to have a more active case finding. Professor of Epidemiology at Tehran University believes these numbers must be multiplied by 7 and Civil Registration Organization data show more than 324,000 have died of the disease since February 2020.
R0: 1.94
Total: 7,117,544 (+3,953)
Dead: 138,711 (+139)
Recovered: 6,768,271
Critical: 3,069 (-107)
Active Cases: 210,562 (-2,565)
Total Tests: 48,108,485
Cover: Mohammad Mohsenzadeh
