While COVID-19 keeps breaking its records on a daily basis, Islamic Republic officials are dealing with the chaos of who said what and if it’s true! Raisi, National Task Force Spokesman, spent his day denying the news that inner-city traffic is banned or that Tehran Governor has gone rouge. Some news agencies published Bandpey has declined to close down Tehran for 2 weeks despite Rouhani’s order, which Raisi denied.
In today’s meeting of “Operation Base of National Task Force” there was a discussion about banning inner-city traffic from 9PM across the country which was passed and sent to National Task Force for final approval in their Saturday meeting. How this and closure of all businesses after 6PM would help breaking the spreading of coronavirus is yet to be explained by officials! According to officials and health experts, the virus has more chance of spreading indoor with poor ventilation, therefore, asking people to stay at home during winter and closing businesses early may make the situation even worse! As reported before, many believe all these Martial law- like rules are to nip any uprising in the bud on the anniversary of November 2019 nationwide protests.
Sima Sadat Lari reported 10,463 new cases of coronavirus tested positive in the past 24 hours, by far the highest daily cases since the epidemic began in Iran 9 months ago! Ministry of Health Spokesperson also announced 458 deaths since yesterday which is one short of the record. According to her, the entire country is in critical status and some cities are now in “black” status, including 3 in Ilam province.
Officials from Khuzestan, Isfahan, Kerman, Fars, Lorestan, East Azerbaijan, and many other provinces report full hospitals. They also express their concern about exhausted and burntout hospital staff including nurses and physicians.
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) reaches 2.40 indicating the devastating situation in Iran, even though it’s based on undercounted (authorities admitted they’re 2.2 to 4 times higher) and discredited data provided by Islamic Republic Ministry of Health. Graphs vividly depict the rising number of active and critical cases. Testing remains at the low level of about 39,000 a day and only 6.3% of the population have been tested so far! Islamic Republic has no plan but to suppress the voice of Iranians!
R0: 2.40
Total: 692,949 (+10,463)
Dead: 38,749(+458)
Recovered: 525,641
Critical: 5,561 (+38)
Admitted: 128,559 (+4,693)
Tests: 5,263,173 (6.3% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Amin Nazari
