Islamic Republic’s plan to control the COVID-19 crisis in Iran has always been based on one thing: propaganda, including lies, giving false hopes and promises, hiding the truth, misinformation campaigns about vaccines, and so on. Ebrahim Raisi’s administration has stepped it up. The Health Minister announced “more than 50% of Iranians have been vaccinated!” Again using “vaccinated” loosely and referring to 1 dose only. According to the Ministry’s official data, since February 9, only 14,416,851 (17.16% of Iran population) have received both doses of the ineffective vaccines!
Sinopharm, which is the major vaccine imported and used in Iran, has been deemed ineffective against Delta and in elderly population. It has also been rumored that the Wuhan version, which is not validated by WHO. The same vaccine is being used in students under 18, and still unknown whether they would be receiving 1 or 2 doses. The poor efficacy of Sinopharm has made it unacceptable by many countries and at the same time, Iranians desperate to find AstraZeneca instead, so they could travel to those countries. That has led to a black market for “AstraZeneca vaccination card” which goes anywhere between 2 to 5 million Toman.
FDA official announced 2million Pfizer doses will be imported from Belgium in the next 1-2 months! However, he did not mention why it takes so long. While health experts warn about the next wave hitting Iran in 4 weeks, how would 2million doses in 2 months help? US has been donating millions of doses to other countries, but Khamenei has banned US and UK made vaccines to help COVIran Barekat, manufactured by “Execution of Imam Khomenei’s Order” which is owned by him, plunder billions of dollars from taxpayers.
While Islamic Republic Health Minister is proud of “breaking weekly administration record” and claims “vaccination will finish within 1-2 months,” Dr. Younesian believes 85-90% of the population must be fully vaccinated to break the spread chain of the virus. The epidemiologist says the next wave in fall is “quite possible” considering the new mutations in the virus.
Eynollahi also admitted “hospitals are in a dreadful situation” across the country, treatment protocols are not followed, patients have died of oxygen shortage,… IranTrue has reported on all those, but Islamic Republic officials denied all the facts! Despite ICUs still being full of COVID-19 patients and only a small portion of people being vaccinated, he announced reducing restrictions in 2 weeks. After more than 19 months of crisis, Eynollahi said from tomorrow, healthcare staff will receive their overdue wages and benefits, a false promise made many times in the past!
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 379 died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours in Iran and 17,564 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Tehran University professor believes these numbers must be multiplied by 7 and Civil Registration Organization data indicate more than 280,000 have died of the disease since February 2020. The graphs illustrate the humanitarian catastrophe in the past 19 months, vividly.
R0: 2.40
Total: 5,459,796 (+17,564)
Dead: 117,905 (+379)
Recovered: 4,819,223
Critical: 6,661 (-46)
Active Cases: 522,668 (-9,921)
Total Tests: 31,223,048
Cover: Milad Hamadi
