Despite what some state-owned media might say, the COVID-19 in Iran is nowhere even close to be under control. Even the Ministry of Health Spokesman has admitted they’re in managing stage of the epidemic, not containing it. Today another record was broken by the number of new confirmed cases for a 24-hour period: 3,186! In the same time period, 117 have passed away of the disease, according to the spokesman. However, according to Iran International, 564 were added to the death toll.
Total: 41,495
Dead: 2,757
Healed: 13,911
Critical: 3,511
Iran International Death Toll: 5,865
Graphs and live map info could be found here.
He also claimed more than 63 million have participated in the online self-screening website, but as mentioned before, the number goes up 3-4 million a day while many report they don’t know anything about it! If the number keeps going up like this, in a week, it would be more than the country’s population!!
Ali Rabiei, government’s spokesman, held his first press conference in the New Year (started March 20). He said, “We finished the last year with many disasters, but the worst of them was unprecedented US sanctions.” He doesn’t mention floods, earthquakes or the COVID-19 epidemic killing 1000s of citizens but sanctions are at the top of his head! He also said, “we didn’t quarantine Qom based on the information and expert opinions we had at the time. I’m collecting evidences and proofs about every decision we’ve taken and will publish them soon.”
This is a blatant lie! Many experts, including head of medical universities, members of parliament’s health committee,… they all expressed their opinion in favor of quarantining Qom and Gilan, the two epicenters. But IRGC intelligence and religious leaders opposed the decision, making up terms such as “Qom Intimidation”. I guess he said that just to buy some time and hoping people would forget about it.
Trump administration has launched a campaign of its own to debunk Islamic Republic regime’s propaganda that US sanctions have hindered Iran’s ability to combat the virus. Here is the latest message from US. Brian Hook, the special State Department’s representative to Iran:
Two yougest infected cases known in the country were discharged from the hospital after 14 days. One was 4 DAYS old and the other 14! Both occured in Rasht, Gilan province. According to the official report, one of them was in contact with another case of COVID-19 but the other one was infected “through other means”, no mention of the exact way of contracting the disease.
Medical universities throughout the country will continue their online courses and the semester will continue till October with no summer semester. They also have decided to cancel all exams and allow going to the next level/year based on the educational history of the students.
The unrest in prisons continue. The last one being in Adel Abad Shiraz prison, capital of Fars province. The attorney general of Fars said, “Two sections of the prison sparked the riot which was controlled by security forces and prison guards.”
Islamic Republic is in the worst shape of its 41-year history! It’s using all resources and tricks it has up its sleeves to unite people and get their support. However, these people have seen it all and won’t be fooled again.