Islamic Republic Deputy Health Minister in Public Health announced purchase of 2.4m doses of Pfizer and 5m doses of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines has been finalized. Dr. Raisi had previously reported these vaccines are bought from Belgium and no vaccine will be imported from the US, UK or France! Khamenei banned US and UK made vaccines in January.
Mr. Health Minister confirmed the report and said those limited numbers are for “pregnant women” and “won’t be enough for anybody else, so get vaccinated with whatever is available now!” He failed to mention anything about the mom-to-bes who have already received one shot of Sinopharm or COVIran Barekat, since Islamic Republic officials and media have been encouraging to use them as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, CEO of Red Crescent Society announced arrival of another shipment from China, containing 5m doses of Sinopharm, an ineffective vaccine especially against Delta and other new strains. Dr. Hemmati repeated his claim that 60m doses will be imported during the month of October. According to the official data, since February 9, total of 48,281,957 shots have been administered across Iran and only 14,938,853 (17.78% of population) have received both doses of Sinopharm (more than 76%), COVIran Barekat (about 9%), Sputnik V (2%), AstraZeneca (12.5%) and Covaxin (0.26%).
On the other hand, health experts warn about reopening of schools and the possibility of sixth wave in the country. Deputy head of FDA recommended the schools not to be reopened until all students have been vaccinated. A process that Islamic Republic has already begun on 12-18 year olds with Chinese Sinopharm, which has not been approved for such use by any international health organization. Even Dr. Mohammadi of FDA admits it’s only been used in China, UAE and Bahrain for this purpose. Many students and parents are hesitant to receive the jab for this reason. In the meantime, the chaos and contradictory messages from different officials have caused confusion among parents. Saturday is the beginning of the school year and many don’t know their schedule yet!
The Ministry of Health Spokesperson claimed 317 died of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours and 16,362 tested positive for the novel coronavirus. According to Civil Registration Organization data, more than 284,000 have died of the disease since February 2020. Professor Holakoui of Tehran University believes the real numbers are 7 times higher than the daily reports. Graphs illustrate the ongoing crisis in Iran with deliberate mismanagement of the Islamic Republic.
R0: 2.38
Total: 5,493,591 (+16,362)
Dead: 118,508 (+317)
Recovered: 4,872,865
Critical: 6,586 (-46)
Active Cases: 502,218 (-10,049)
Total Tests: 31,437,588
Cover: Mahdi Marizad
