COVID-19 vaccination has been a political issue in Iran since it was discovered by the US and UK companies. Khamenei banned those vaccines and instead, promoted COVIran Barekat which was “developed” (a duplicate of Chinese Sinopharm) by his foundation to plunder billions of dollars from taxpayers. It was a failure and could never deliver on its bold promises. In the meantime, when a “representative at the Islamic Republic parliament” criticized the government for using “unapproved and unsafe” Sinopharm on children and adults in Iran, a member of Health Commission at the “parliament” responded: “Let’s not make the vaccination process political! Some people say things that are not expedient!”
Public Health Department of Ministry of Health also issued a statement, mentioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines used in Iran as “acceptable”, encouraging people to “trust them”, without giving any fact or number. As previously reported, people are highly skeptical of the vaccines, especially the Sinopharm for students 12-18 year old.
Ministry of Health claims total of 60,417,945 shots have been administered in Iran, and only 17,496,724 (20.82% of population) have received both doses of the ineffective vaccines.
On the other hand, Mazandaran residents are being prepared for the sixth wave. Locals in a field report expressed their concern over high number of travelers in the province who do not abide by the COVID-19 protocols and nobody enforces them. In addition, as reported yesterday, Fars officials announced “slow increase” in the infection rate in the province.
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson announced 216 have died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 10,497 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 292,000 have died of the disease since February 202. Graphs illustrate the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in the past 19 months.
R0: 2.16
Total: 5,662,458 (+10,497)
Dead: 121,779 (+216)
Recovered: 5,153,048
Critical: 5,598 (-67)
Active Cases: 387,631 (-6,880)
Total Tests: 32,829,944
Cover: Fatemeh Rahimavian
