Traffic restrictions in/out of province capitals started two days earlier than scheduled. The hospitals continue to struggle with shortage of resources including staff whom their benefits have not been paid for months! According to officials, more nurses are going out of work due to depression, exhaustion and contracting coronavirus! Ministry of Health doesn’t have enough resources to hire new staff and people are not attended properly in hospitals, even though healthcare staff are doing their best and work long hours. This vicious cycle continues, making matters even worse.
Ministry of Health Spokesperson announced another record for COVID-19 in Iran. 440 died of the disease in the past 24 hours while 8,289 tested positive. That’s a new record set for daily death toll in the country. Sima Sadat Lari reported Fars and 3 other provinces as “alarming” but Fars officials reported 34 deaths since yesterday, a record for the province. According to the head of Shiraz Medical University, Fars also enters the “red” category.
In the meantime, Epidemiology Committee of National Task Force released its weekly report on the coronavirus spreading trends in the country as a whole and each province. According to this document, Iran is in an uptrend. 20 of 31 provinces have upward trajectory while 8 are “stable.” In the same report, 2 provinces, Yazd and South Khorasan, have passed a peak! Yazd has had the most cases in the past week, according to official numbers. West Azerbaijan’s data were a mismatch but showing a slight uptrend!
Health experts warn of worse days to come. They believe the low number of testing is one of the major causes of faster spread of coronavirus in Iran. Officials have promised of an increase in numbers of daily tests which haven’t been delivered yet! Furthermore, positivity rate has increased to 23% despite the number of tests decreasing, today. Critical cases keep rising and active cases are through the roof. The jump from yesterday, 3,293, has been the biggest since the epidemic began 8.5 months ago.
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) increased 2 more points to 2.08, indicating worsening situation in Iran and a faster spreading virus. The graphs depict the ongoing human catastrophe, even though they’re based on the undercounted and highly discredited data of Islamic Republic Ministry of Health.
R0: 2.08
Total: 628,780 (+8,289)
Dead: 35,738 (+440)
Recovered: 491,247
Critical: 5,315 (+71)
Admitted: 101,795 (+3,293)
Tests: 5,001,422 (6.2% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Amir Hossein Khourgouei
