The contradictory comments, late announcement of red and orange counties for Nowruz holidays, allowing travels to yellow and blue counties, all were plans for Islamic Republic to charge people fines after they arrived at their destinations. The travel ban for “red and orange” cities was to be valid until April 4, but the first day of Persian New Year, authorities released names of new cities which traveling to/from them is not allowed! The catch is travelers have 3 days to leave those cities and return to their origin, otherwise, they are fined 1 million Toman per day stay in red cities and 500,000 Toman for orange cities! Even though, the officials have repeatedly emphasized that traveling from red and orange cities is prohibited too. A new way for the bankrupt regime to bankroll its mercenaries. Also, it is a good way for spreading the coronavirus, especially the new UK variant, across Iran even faster.
On the other hand, the new list sounds the alarm for Tehran, because Damavand and Firouzkouh are among the new orange cities. Dr. Zali reiterated the situation is very fragile and infections continue to rise. He reported 370 hospitalizations in the past 24 hours in Tehran including 80 ICU admissions. Head of Tehran Corona Combating Committee said 1/3 of national deaths (25) happened in Tehran in the past 24 hours. He warned the coloring of cities will be constantly changing since the UK variant of coronavirus has formed roots in the country.
Bushehr is one of the 14 cities upgraded to higher risk level across Iran. The capital of Bushehr province was upgraded to orange signaling increasing number of cases, as reported before by IranTrue. Hormozgan reported 33% increased COVID-19 deaths in the past week from the week before. The officials confirmed 4 new UK variant cases, bringing the total in the province to 207! Alborz province is the next in line with 2 new UK variant infections. Ahvaz Medical University reported another increase in number of hospitalizations, total of 1,715 in the past 2 days. Head of the University said the reason has been 21% increase in traffic exiting Ahvaz. According to Ministry of Health, Ahvaz is a red city and nobody should be allowed in/out of the city.
The three new red cities are in Isfahan, Yazd and Fars, central provinces of Iran, a huge red alarm that the UK variant coronavirus is spreading faster than Islamic Republic officials care to admit.
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson presented her daily manipulated data. Iran Medical Council officials have admitted the real numbers are at least 3 times higher and recent publication suggested many more COVID-19 deaths occurred in Iran. According to Sima Sadat Lari, 75 died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours in Iran while 7,540 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Daily PCR testing has been on a downward trend for the 3rd day in a row, decreased another 2,500 in the past 24 hours, as seen on the graphs. Meanwhile, positivity rate rose to 12.47% from 12.11% the day before and 11.71% 24 hours before that. Critical cases had a sharp decline despite local reports that more cases are in need of ICU beds when arriving at the hospital.
R0: 3.80
Total: 1,793,805 (+7,540)
Dead: 61,724 (+75)
Recovered: 1,536,606
Critical: 3,849 (-30)
Admitted: 195,475 (-447)
Tests: 12,099,761 (14.5% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
