National Task Force convened its weekly meeting today where they’ve decided closing down all businesses, except essential ones, will help stop record breaking coronavirus infections! This would be implemented in province capitals and big cities from Tuesday, November 10, for a month! The daily record for COVID-19 cases was broken today, again, with 9,450 Iranians testing positive and 423 died of the unstoppable epidemic. According to Sima Sadat Lari, the entire country is in critical situation and it would worsen in the upcoming cold weather with family gatherings.
All gatherings, including weddings and funerals, even the private ones, are banned across the country and many provinces have announced fines and criminal repercussions for hosts of these gatherings. In the meantime, Rouhani, the President of National Task Force, said, “Usually, during winter months, families gather inside houses, but this new closing time could help break the chain of infections.” However, he didn’t explain how this could help and discourage people from those get-togethers!
Raisi, National Task Force Spokesman and Deputy Health Minister in Health Affairs, stated the discussion to lockdown Tehran for 2 weeks didn’t even make it to the Task Force. He denied Rouhani being against it and said the requests would go through a specific procedure, including the subcommittees before being discussed in the weekly meeting! That translated to the request was rejected in the security committee with members from IRGC intelligence, Polic Chief and MOIS!
Raisi also admitted the situation in Tehran Metro and public transportation system in general, is dreadful and needs attention, but he didn’t mention any specific solution. He said testing and “contact tracing” could be used to diagnose the chain of spread but again, with no details.
It’s been 9 months since the epidemic began in Iran and has never slowed down. Hospitals and their staff are overwhelmed and many have problems staying afloat. Saeed Namaki admitted hiring new staff is almost impossible due to low budget! He also admitted the novel coronavirus is difficult to be contained despite him claiming it was already curtailed!
Tehran officials continue to ask for 2 weeks of lockdown. Nahid Khodakarami said 17,754 have died of COVID-19 in the city of Tehran alone. Head of Tehran City Council Health Commission said this is going to worsen in the upcoming months and the government must take “strict” and “serious” actions to stop the virus. Officials in Kerman announced banks have to close for 2 weeks. Fars recorded another record in daily deaths. East Azerbaijan reported new restrictions will take place across the province. Lorestan reported record breaking deaths and cases in the past week. The list of grim reports from across the country is overwhelming.
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) reached 2.25 while graphs depict the ever growing number of active and critical cases. Testing remains in the same range.
R0: 2.25
Total: 673,250 (+9,450)
Dead: 37,832(+423)
Recovered: 515,153
Critical: 5,506 (+11)
Admitted: 120,265 (+3,826)
Tests: 5,185,361 (6.3% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Nazila Ghomian
