Head of the Prevention and Health Committee at the National COVID-19 Task Force confirms Iran has entered the sixth wave of the deadly disease. Dr. Hamid Souri expresses his regret that immediately after the fifth wave, the next breakout is happening. He added, when cases and hospitalizations are on the rise for 14 days, it means the next wave has begun, and that is the situation in Iran. He reiterated other health experts’ opinion that at least 80% of population must be fully vaccinated before the government even think about reopening schools and lift restrictions.
Dr. Tabatabaei, another member of the Scientific Committee at the National COVID-19 Task Force, said COVID-19 will not go anywhere any time soon and “We won’t be relieved of its harm for now!” He repeated the 80% benchmark for fully vaccinated population in order for the government to reopen businesses. He said the most important thing about reopening schools is to follow health “protocols!” Since the epidemic began in Iran, not a single “protocol” has been enforced properly anywhere, let alone in schools! He referred to the vaccination of students 12-17 years old with the unverified and ineffective Sinopharm, saying its impact will not be known for at least a few months.
Deputy Head of Environmental and Occupational Health Center of the Ministry of Health explained the “smart quarantine”, but it remained vague. Dr. Farhadi said everything would be based on vaccination status of a business owner or a person if they want to receive any service. He added, in this plan, “color of the cities” would be irrelevant. He also claimed it has been implemented successfully in Qazvin as a pilot, while not even 50% of the province have been fully vaccinated!
The Ministry of Health claimed since February 9, total of 85,369,917 shots have been administered in Iran and only 33,088,940 (39.39% of population) have received both doses of these vaccines.
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 123 have died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 9,893 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 301,000 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: 5,899,509 (+9,893)
Dead: 125,875 (+123)
Recovered: 5,468,620
Critical: 4,014 (-64)
Active Cases: 305,014 (-3,347)
Total Tests: 35,298,571
Cover: Hadi Zand
