Officials are running out of words to describe the severity of COVID-19 crisis in their provinces. From Qom to West Azerbaijan, from Khuzestan to South Khorasan, Isfahan, Alborz, and Tehran, all have one thing in common, “extremely dreadful situation.” Increased number of infections, admissions and critical cases have caused hospitals to overflow and shortages of beds spread to more and more cities. In provinces which announced the number of their current active cases and critical ones, almost 20% of admissions are sent to ICUs! However, hospitals don’t have that many ICU beds, therefore, another confirmation that doctors have to pick and choose which patient to save!
The situation gets worse when Islamic Republic manipulates the data and announces undercounted numbers, making some people to believe the situation is not as bad as “you think.” For example, today, officials have announced in the city of Tehran alone, in the first 5 months of Persian calendar (March 20 – August 20), there have been 32% more deaths, almost 7,500 compared to the same time period last year. Again, according to officials, number of fatal car crashes have decreased, which leaves COVID-19 as one of the major causes of deaths in the country in the past 7 months. On the other hand, Nahid Khodakarami, a Tehran City Councilwoman, reported 10,648 deaths till August 31, 2020. On that day, the total number of COVID-19 deaths announced by the Ministry of Health was, 21,571! A simple calculation shows, a city with 10% of Iran’s population, had more than 50% of COVID-19 related deaths. From August 21 to August 31, according to the Ministry, 1,307 died of the deadly coronavirus in the whole country, when according to other sources close to 3,100 passed on in the city of Tehran alone!
In the meantime, all officials are “worried” about fall and how to control COVID-19 with other concurrent infections such as flu. One of the main ways to combat twindemic is with flu vaccine. However, in the past few weeks, there have been so many contradictory statements from different officials that nobody knows whether flu vaccine doses have successfully been imported or millions of Euro paid for them is still missing in Turkey?! Did the parliament really return the 1500 vaccine vials they received ahead of everybody else or was it just another PR stunt? Because according to Ministry of Health laws, due to specific storage requirements vaccines cannot be returned! Ordinary citizens don’t have access to flu vaccine even if they pay for it out of pocket.
“The Daily Sadat Lari Show” went on with her announcing her pathetic undercounted data, which are even in contrast with Ministry of Health itself and provincial officials. For example, Harirchi says there’s no meaning to colors anymore as the entire country is in critical condition, but the Spokesperson says there are 24 provinces in “red” status and 5 “orange.” She also reported 3,563 new cases of COVID-19 and 207 deaths in the past 24 hours. Critical cases have increased significantly as well, although it still doesn’t even come close to the analytical estimation. Active cases have risen through the roof, predicting worse days are yet to come.
Basic Reproduction Rate (R0), one of the best epidemiological tools to devise plans to combat an epidemic has risen another 3 points, indicating a human catastrophe, even though it’s based on Islamic Republic’s data, but it’s not mentioned by any official. While everybody agrees the government has made grave mistakes in holding gatherings during Ramadan, Eid Fitr, Muharram and prematurely lifted restrictions in April and shouldn’t have reopened schools, but we are yet to see any plan by the regime to at least try to correct their mistakes. Tomorrow is the National Task Force weekly meeting and guaranteed no practical plan would come out of it, but a bunch of talking points for Rouhani to be on the news for a couple hours! People’s lives is the cheapest commodity in the theocratic regime’s eyes.
Growth factors and graphs also point towards a grim future while international media are focused on less important aspects of Islamic Republic and falling for its propaganda!
R0: 1.56
Total: 439,882 (+3,563)
Dead: 25,222 (+207)
Healed: 369,842
Critical: 4,023 (+66)
Admitted: 44,818 (+1,343)
Tests: 3,879,640 (4.6% of the population, assuming each test was performed on 1 person)
Cover: Mohadeseh Zare
