COVID-19 gets momentum in Khorasan Razavi, and according to Dr. Jama’ati of National COVID-19 Task Force, it is going through an uptick in several western provinces as well. He admits people have not embraced the vaccines in those provinces. While provincial officials continue reporting low turnout for the vaccination, Islamic Republic Health Minister claims “economy is going back to normal because people have helped with the inoculation,” an imaginary situation with national currency taking a hit every day, poverty on the rise and shortage of essential commodities such as flour have been ongoing in Iran for years!
Islamic Republic has been earning millions of dollars from its “travel ban at night” plan during the COVID-19 epidemic. Despite health experts casting doubts on its effect on the spread of the novel coronavirus, reopening schools, opening borders, allowing high risk businesses to go back to normal, and Police having no objection to lift the traffic restriction, regime officials continue the “ban” and fine violators hefty amounts.
With less than 2 weeks to the implementation of “smart quarantine” which bans social services, including traveling, for the unvaccinated, people involved in the tourism industry are questioning how the new “protocols” would be enforced when nothing has been sent to the operators.
Meanwhile, the daily death toll has been above 100 for months now and officials have begun to normalize this catastrophic number as “acceptable!” Dr. Naji explained the reasons behind it: “Missing the golden time for vaccination, not completing the vaccinations in time, delays in third dose administration, low compliance of COVID-19 protocols across the country, premature reopenings, providing false data, not enforcing protocols properly, and mismanagement of the crisis.” Head of Virology Research Center at Beheshti University in Tehran added, prevention is the most important stage in fighting the coronavirus, which protocols have not bee enforced and vaccination has been chaotic since the start. It is worth mentioning, Khamenei has banned US and UK made vaccines, promoting the failed “domestic” ones.
Eynollahi and other regime officials have been bragging about “breaking vaccination records”, but apparently they only count the first doses! According to WHO, 3 doses of Sinopharm are required for immunity. The ineffective Chinese vaccine has been the major one used in Iran, with more than 82% of inoculations. Since February 9, only 40,829,657 (48.60% of Iran population) have received 2 doses of these vaccines.
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 130 have died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 7,948 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Professor of Epidemiology at Tehran University believes these numbers must be multiplied by 7 and Civil Registration Organization data show more than 305,000 have died of the disease since February 2020. Graphs illustrate the ongoing crisis in Iran and forming of the new wave.
R0: 2.04
Total: 6,004,460 (+7,948)
Dead: 127,551 (+130)
Recovered: 5,629,596
Critical: 3,616 (-24)
Active Cases: 247,313 (-5,972)
Total Tests: 36,611,398
Cover: MohamadHassan Salavati
