According to the updated list of COVID-19 “high risk” areas in Iran, released by the Islamic Republic Ministry of Health, there was no increase in the number of “red” areas, despite health experts and officials confirming the cases and hospitalizations have been on the rise and the sixth wave has begun. The “red” cities are scattered across the country, in 12 provinces. Medical professionals have been criticizing the “coloring map” system for months, but the Islamic Republic media uses it as a tool to fit the regime’s agenda.
Provinces continue reporting surges in cases and hospitalizations. Fars officials are “extremely concerned” about the circumstances and announced there would be no “in-person schooling for now.” Kohgiloyeh-Boyerahmad is getting ready for the flood of patients. Khuzestan reports rising cases in 6 counties of the province. Ardabil was upgraded to “orange” status. Zanjan has more than 200 hospitalized. Hormozgan authorities announced upward trajectory of infections in at least 2 counties. Lorestan announced the decline in cases has stopped which is a warning sign! Mazandaran and Gilan continue to struggle with spike in patients. Semnan becomes “red”, again, and West Azerbaijan recorded more than 2,100 outpatients in 24 hours.
After weeks of insisting on reopening schools in full capacity for in-person classes, the Islamic Republic officials have retracted and postponed the resumption of school activities to at least late-November, early-December. In the meantime, an official from the Ministry of Health admitted there must be “no haste” in implementing the decisions. Mr. Farhadi laid out a series of conditions for schools before they can resume their activities, however, he did not mention anything about the areas where schools are filled with students, do not have proper ventilation in classrooms, the students cannot afford tablets for “online school”, the schools have no staff,…
Meanwhile, students 12-17 years old are being vaccinated with the unapproved and ineffective Sinopharm. However, every day, the inoculation rate declines. Khuzestan officials are “dissatisfied” with the low vaccination rate among the students. Lorestan is on the same boat. This fact is obvious in the Ministry of Health’s vaccination statistics, where the daily “second dose” administration is more than “first dose” takers.
The Ministry of Health claimed since February 9, total of 86,137,470 shots have been administered in Iran and only 33,674,073 (40.08% of population) have received both doses of these vaccines.
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 128 have died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 6,809 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 302,000 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 (+6,809)
Dead: 125,875 (+128)
Recovered: 5,468,620
Critical: 3,942 (-72)
Active Cases: 305,014 (-6,271)
Total Tests: 35,403,860
Cover: Ali Abdollahi
