Islamic Republic officials continue to celebrate passing of the fourth peak of coronavirus epidemic in Iran. According to manipulated figures provided by regime’s Ministry of Health, 366 died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours while 16,409 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Iran Medical Board officials admit the real numbers are at least 3 times higher than what is reported.
In the meantime, Chairman of Tehran Corona Combating Committee reports the capital is still in “red” status, despite Ministry’s “orange” designation. Dr. Zali confirmed 1,050 hospitalizations in the past 24hrs in Tehran alone, while 7,350 are total COVID-19 patients at hospitals across the capital. He said the decline in cases, hospitalizations and deaths is delayed by about 10-14 days in Tehran compared to the rest of the country.
Mashhad Medical University warned about the extremely fragile situation in the second biggest city of Iran. Head of Western Ahvaz Health Network sounded the alarm about Eid Fitr gatherings and cautioned people that if the health protocols are not followed, “we will be back to the crisis of the past 100 days!” And Hormozgan Medical University official predicts that the province is potent to spread and even create a mutated variant, considering its geography, tourism and foreign residents.
May 12, World Nurses Day, and Iranian nurses still deprived of their basic rights. Long shifts with no overtime, not being vaccinated against COVID-19, months of overdue benefits and wages, and some without a proper contract, are a short list of nurses problems in overrun and underequiped hospitals of Islamic Republic. Deputy of Development and Resource Management of the Iran Nursing Board Organization mentioned lack of manpower as the main problem of the nursing system. Hamidreza Azizi joined other nursing professionals in rebuking the government for allocating small number of COVID vaccines to nurses across the country. He confirmed many nurses are still unvaccinated.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed by the end of the week, 2 shipments of vaccines, one from China and the other from COVAX program (AstraZeneca) are to arrive in Iran. Sima Sadat Lari also asserted 10million doses will be imported by June 22. On the other hand, FDA Spokesman stated 3 million doses of vaccines will land in Iran by May 22. At the same time, Dr. Jahanpur denied the allegations from a member of Islamic Consultative Assembly Presidium that more than 200,000 doses of imported vaccines have gone lost and each dose is being sold for 25million Toman in the black market! Jahanpur called this claim fictitious and impossible. Meanwhile, he also announced AstraZeneca vaccines produced in Italy are not authorized to be used in Iran, giving a hint that the next batch of COVAX vaccines are arriving from Italy.
While Dr. Jahanpur “hopes” 13-14million people will be vaccinated by the end of Rouhani’s term (August 3), in the past 92 days, only 319,793 (0.38% of population) have been fully vaccinated. Since February 9, 1,943,072 shots have been administered.
According to Ministry of Health data and as shown on the graphs, the COVID-19 crisis in Iran is nowhere close to an end, unlike the rest of the world.
R0: 3.67
Total: 2,707,761 (+16,409)
Dead: 75,934 (+366)
Recovered: 2,162,087
Critical: 5,501 (-21)
Active Cases: 469,740 (-1,847)
Tests: 17,480,333 (20.8% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Saeed Sajjadi
