Third Iranian Parliamentarian Dies from Covid-19

Isa Jafari, 59, a member of the newly-elected parliament representing the cities of Bahar and Kabudarahang in Hamedan province, has died from coronavirus. He had been hospitalized in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a Tehran hospital since Wednesday, July 8. Jafari is the third member of parliament to die of Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic in February. Fatemeh Rahbar, a lawmaker from Tehran, and Mohammad Ali Ramezani, a lawmaker from the north of Gilan province, also died.

At least eight other new lawmakers have also been infected with the virus, according to media reports. As of early April, coronavirus had infected 23 former parliamentarians. The disease has also killed at least 17 regime figures, including military commanders, clerics and politicians. Former Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani tested positive while still in the post in April. He has since recovered.

Hospitals are creating higher volumes of garbage, and, as a result, the volume of contaminated garbage in greater Tehran has increased 3.5 times per day, from 2,000 to 7,000 tons, according to Dr. Alireza Zali, the director of the Tehran Coronavirus Taskforce. “On average,” he said, “a hospital bed produces 3.5 to 5 kilograms of garbage, a percentage of which is contaminated.”

With the second coronavirus wave hitting most Iranian provinces, the fate of the nationwide university entrance exams remains up in the air. On the night of June 12, it was announced that the entrance exams for Master’s degrees and PhDs, scheduled for July 16, July 23 and July 24, had been postponed. On July 13, the National Testing Organization announced that the exams have been rescheduled for July 30, August 6 and August 7. In a letter to one of his deputies, Alireza Raeesi, health minister Saeed Namaki wrote that, before the entrance exams were held, representatives from the health ministry must visit testing locations to ensure that health protocols are being followed.

Province Round-up

On July 13, the health ministry continued its trend of misrepresenting the number of provinces currently in a critical situation. On that day, it listed only four of nine provinces being on red alert. According to the ministry, the situation in the provinces of Khuzestan, Razavi Khorasan, West Azerbaijan and Mazandaran is “red” and the provinces of Tehran, Fars, Kerman, Alborz, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Golestan, Bushehr, Hormozgan and East Azerbaijan are all in an “orange,” or less serious, state.

But Dr. Jamil Sadeghi-Far, vice president of Ilam University of Medical Sciences, argued that the figures are not accurate because the health ministry’s information systems are not updated in a timely manner. As a result, these figures are out of sync with the situation on the ground in various provinces.

Based on figures announced by provincial health officials and judging by the criteria officially announced by the health ministry for designating an area as “red,” the provinces of Ilam, Kurdistan, South Khorasan, Bushehr, Hormozgan, Golestan, Qazvin, Tehran, and Alborz are in a “red” state as well.

On the same day, an official for the Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences said that what the province has been experiencing in recent weeks is not even the main wave of coronavirus infections that had been predicted. That wave will bring as many as four times the infections and fatalities currently being experienced.

According to instructions issued to all decision-making entities in the province including the governor’s office, all cities in Hormozgan are in a red state, announced Hossein Farshidi, president of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences. According to Dr. Maryam Amiri, the director of Hormozgan Social Security Organization, 118 members of the province’s medical staff had been infected with coronavirus.

During a Bushehr Coronavirus Taskforce meeting, deputy health minister Ghasem Jan-Babaei said that a third of coronavirus patients in Bushehr’s ICU wards are young people. In the current situation, when many patients in the province are in a critical condition, the existing equipment is not enough, he said. There was a need for ventilators and respirators and a shortage of ICU beds, and he called for these needs to be met. 

Of the hospital beds allocated to coronavirus patients in Fars province, 70 percent are full, according to Mehrzad Lotfi, president of Shiraz University of Medical Science, who asked for private hospitals to be included in Covid-19 patient rotations.

Despite a fall in the number of coronavirus infections in Kurdistan, the province was still on “red,” or emergency, alert, warned Dr. Ebrahim Ghaderi, vice president of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences. He reported that the number of coronavirus patients and hospitalizations was now three times what it was in April and May, so the situation in Kurdistan is still critical. He also warned that some cities in the province might be hit by new waves of coronavirus.

In the 24-hour period covering July 12 and July 13, 33 new coronavirus patients were hospitalized in Qazvin province and, considering the size of the population, the province is now practically a “red” zone, announced Manouchehr Habibi, deputy governor of Qazvin. He reported that the number of coronavirus fatalities in the province had grown five times compared to the week before. According to him, in that 24-hour period, five people had died in Qazvin from coronavirus and currently 239 Covid-19 patients were hospitalized in Qazvin’s hospitals.

Between July 12 and July 13, five people had died from coronavirus in the southern part of Fars province. The cities of Larestan, Khonj and Gerash were reported to be in a “red” state and 31 coronavirus patients were hospitalized in Larestan, according to Dr. Mohammad Hossein Karimi, president of Larestan University of Medical Sciences. He also warned that there were no hospital beds left in the city.

In the 24-hour period covering July 12 and July 13, 22 people died from Covid-19 in Golestan. All of the province’s 14 cities were red zones, reported Dr. Abdolreza Fazel, president of Golestan University of Medical Sciences. Of the 683 coronavirus patients hospitalized in Golestan, he said, 44 were in critical condition. He warned that the province was struggling with a shortage of hospital beds, oxygen concentrators and CT scan equipment.

Approximately 1,000 coronavirus patients are hospitalized in hospitals run by Mazandaran and Babol universities of medical sciences. All cities in Mazandaran are now red zones; it was the second time in four months that the province was forced to grapple with a coronavirus wave.

Compared to April, the number of coronavirus hospitalizations in South Khorasan had doubled and the number of patients in ICU had grown four or five times, according to Dr. Alireza Mahmoudi Rad, president of Vali-e Asr Hospital in the city of Birjand. He added that the hospital was trying to set up a new ICU ward with 13 beds by the end of the week.

According to the South Khorasan Coronavirus Taskforce, out of  11 cities in the province, two were in a “yellow,” or less serious state of alert, two cities — where 90 percent of the province’s population live — are “orange” and seven are “red,”

The number of hospitalizations in Ilam continued to be high and province continued to be a "red" zone, according to Dr. Jamil Sadeghi-Far, the vice president of Ilam University of Medical Sciences. He said that in the last two weeks the number of coronavirus hospitalizations had been between 140 to 150,  and that number has not diminished. He emphasized that it was wrong to assume that the province is no longer in a red zone.

The number of coronavirus infections in Bushehr started to decline, announced Dr. Saeed Kashmiri, the president of Bushehr University of Medical, although he added that the province is still in a “red” state. He said that since June 2 the number of cases had increased from 2,000 to 6,700 and the death toll had gone from 13 to 162.

The Daily Briefing from the Health Ministry

In her daily briefing, the health ministry’s spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari announced that in the 24-hour period cover July 12 and July 13, 2,349 new cases of coronavirus had been identified, and out of those, 1,581 people had been hospitalized. Only July 13, the official total number of infections in Iran stood at 259,652. During the same 24-hour period, 203 Covid-19 patients died, bringing the official death toll to 13,652