COVID-19 cases are up and down across Iran. While Islamic Republic officials claim the sixth wave has ended, Lorestan reported a rise in daily death toll and Fars has increasing number of hospitalizations and cases. Gilan Medical University Spokesman warned about a new wave of COVID-19 in the country caused by Persian New Year Holidays travels.
Meanwhile, the manipulated and undercounted data of Ministry of Health shows 1,563 have died of COVID-19 in Iran in the past week and 14,059 were hospitalized. Daily death toll have been soaring in 19 of 31 provinces. On the other hand, the Ministry of Health updated the “high risk” areas and designated 148 cities as “red”, a decrease of 36. Despite all the warnings by experts about a new wave and BA.2 subvariant of Omicron being confirmed in the country, all schools are held in-person and traveling during holidays is allowed with little to no restriction.
According to official definition of “full vaccination” and Ministry of Health data, since February 9, only 23,647,756 (28.15% 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 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.
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 154 have died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 6,470 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: 7,080,217 (+6,470)
Dead: 137,593 (+154)
Recovered: 6,709,131
Critical: 4,056 (+42)
Active Cases: 233,493 (-6,321)
Total Tests: 47,571,202
Cover: Shayan Hajinajaf
