COVID-19 crisis in Iran has entered in a situation even worse than when it first began, despite almost 8 months of struggling with it and possibly more experience in dealing with the situation! Healthcare staff are burnt out and officials are demanding new and fresh power should be added to hospitals ASAP! All hospitals in the country are required to accept COVID-19 patients and all non-emergency medical procedures and treatments have been suspended throughout the country.
According to Deputy Health Minister Harirchi, the entire country is in “red” condition but Tehran is beyond critical! Hospitals are at full capacity, and according to him, 10% of the COVID-19 patients entering the hospital, and 50% of critical cases end up dead. This estimation casts even a greater shadow of doubt on the daily numbers provided by Ministry of Health! Sima Sadat Lari, the Ministry’s Spokesperson, announced 4,142 new cases and 210 deaths in the past 24 hours! Of the confirmed cases, 1,787 were admitted, and currently there are 4,392 critical cases in ICUs across the country. Assuming these fictional numbers are correct, that means from October 2 till today, with 31,334 confirmed cases, about 16,000 have been admitted, 1,600 have died! The Ministry has announced 1,718 deaths in the same time period, meaning only 118 deaths were among the ICU patients with more than 4,000 patients, whom are in the worst respiratory condition.
On the other hand, Tehran Governor announced the lockdown is extended for another week, until October 16. However, as shown before, none of the protocols are enforced as they should be. In the meantime, tomorrow is the weekly meeting of National Task Force which they should be deciding about the amount of fine for people who don’t wear masks in public! After almost 8 months of ravaging coronavirus spread, the government has decided to put on some restrictions on gatherings and high risk businesses but religious gatherings have been allowed even during the worst wave of patients!
While Islamic Republic President and his Foreign Ministry keep blaming US sanctions for their mismanagement and inaction, Hemmati, head of Central Bank of Iran said international banks have received their permit to allow humanitarian and medical related transactions, so the new US sanctions “is more of an election stunt” from Trump administration. Yet another proof that the regime lies about everything as long as there’s something or somebody to blame!
Flu vaccine which some scientists believe could help in prevention of coronavirus infection is yet to be distributed in drugstores, despite the promises made by the officials weeks ago, which would only be available for certain groups.
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0) at 1.73 means the virus has accelerated its spread and wearing mask alone is not going to be helpful, physical distance is the most important aspect of stopping novel coronavirus. The graphs show the ongoing crisis and active cases soaring through the roof, while recoveries are on the decline for the 4th day in a row. Testing remains at the same range and only performed on symptomatic patients who go to hospitals, the same hospitals who have banned non-emergency procedures.
R0: 1.73
Total: 492,378 (+4,141)
Dead: 28,098 (+210)
Healed: 401,379
Critical: 4,392 (+57)
Admitted: 62,901 (+1,853)
Tests: 4,257,766 (5.1% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Bahman Sadeghi
