Today records were broken, again! Number of daily cases reached 4,392 and critical cases skyrocketed to 4,335, alarming that number of deaths would be increasing in the upcoming days. Sima Sadat Lari also announced 230 deaths due to COVID-19 in the past 24 hours while 30 of 31 provinces are in critical conditions. Tehran’s situation, specifically, is deteriorating every minute.
Khamenei ordered all military hospitals to accept COVID-19 patients, because public and private hospitals have reported full capacity for a few days already! Just another way of portraying himself as the “savior”. However, people are out and can’t afford to follow health protocols to stay home because the government hasn’t been supporting them in any way, shape or form! Healthcare staff who are on the front line to fight the deadly virus are burnt out and exhausted, but still haven’t been paid months of wags and benefits.
In the meantime, today was Arbain (Arbaeen) and holiday, meaning the government didn’t hold any meeting or made any effort to control the crisis, instead it all has been postponed till Saturday. Come Saturday, nothing tangible and significant would change but a few directives that people might be fined a few dollars if not wear masks in public. Wearing mask will be mandatory in Tehran at all times. But none of these would be enforced properly. Additionally, putting on mask is necessary but not enough to control coronavirus spread.
On the other hand, while officials keep blaming people, especially their unnecessary traveling to other cities, a research by Tehran City Council has proved them wrong, as we had reported before. According to the head of Health Commission at Tehran City Council, Nahid Khodakarami, from the admitted COVID-19 patients in Tehran hospitals, 67% have attended gatherings, while only 17% have traveled to “red” cities!
Active cases soar to a new high every day while testing remains in the same range. Graphs and Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) are the best indicators of the ongoing unstoppable COVID-19 crisis in Iran, even though they’re based on the ever manipulated data provided by the Ministry of Health. R0 increased 4 points today, meaning the virus spread has accelerated!
R0: 1.73
Total: 488,236 (+4,392)
Dead: 27,888 (+230)
Healed: 399,300
Critical: 4,335 (+61)
Admitted: 61,048 (+1,971)
Tests: 4,232,064 (5.1% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Aria Jafari
