Large Gatherings Will Lead to “Disaster”

The coronavirus crisis continues in Tehran, with the death toll reaching close to 100 on a daily basis over the last two weeks.  

IranWire receives daily figures for fatalities in Tehran through its own exclusive sources, from Behesht Zahra Cemetery, which bases its figures on death certificates it issues for bodies arriving there for burial. According to these figures, between February 20 and August 2, the Covid-19 death toll in Iran has been approximately 8,700.

Dr. Alireza Zali, director of Tehran Coronavirus Taskforce was again hesitant to claim the virus was under control in Iran, and said that any assertions of a “victory over coronavirus” would be hasty, misleading, and driven by emotions rather than an accurate assessment. There can be no doubt that this contagion “will come in several waves” and the only way to cope with it is to break the transmission chain, he said.

One third of the medical staff of Sina Hospital in Tehran have been infected with coronavirus. Every day an average of 100 Covid-19 patients arrive at the hospital, according to the hospital’s president, Dr. Mohammad Talebpour. Like many Iranian government officials before him, Dr. Talebpour played down the government’s failure to control the pandemic and blamed ordinary people for the crisis, who he said were ignoring health protocols. 

Iranian health officials cannot agree on what to call what is happening to the country at the moment. Is it a “second wave” or a “second peak” or neither? They regularly contradict one another, and themselves. On August 3, without referring to any of these terms, the health ministry’s spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari said that Qom witnessed a big surge of the epidemic in March, which then receded, but since June the number of infections and hospitalizations in Qom has risen again and there is the possibility that this could lead to another surge.

 

Exams Set to go Ahead...

Political wrangling over nationwide university entrance exams continues. Members of parliament who have been silent about the forthcoming ceremonies to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hossein and whether or not it is safe for them to go ahead have been quite vocal about the entrance exams, demanding that health ministry and science ministry officials explain their decision to allow exams to take place. 

Pointing out that health protocols were not followed during PhD entrance exams, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the parliament, said he and other officials were concerned that the same thing would happen during nationwide entrance exams. He called for the exams to be postponed until after the current coronavirus peak, and until the colder season arrives so that students can endure wearing a mask for hours.

At the same time, parliament has set aside its emergency bill to postpone exams and Senior Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi defended the plan for exams to go ahead. He said the number of participants is fewer people than a day's crowd on a Caspian Sea beach — an argument drawing a parallel between people who ignore the threat of coronavirus to spend leisure time on the beach and students who will be forced to take exams in enclosed spaces.

Nevertheless, both the government and the National Coronavirus Taskforce insist on holding both the nationwide entrance exams and the upcoming Imam Hossein mourning ceremonies. They do not consider these numbers of people in one space to be violating limits on the size of the gatherings or other health protocols. On the other hand, independent experts consider this policy to be disastrous.

For instance, in a letter to President Rouhani, the Islamic Association of Iranian Medical Society pointed out that all efforts to control the pandemic have failed and making gatherings conditional on following health protocols is “a contradiction in terms” because crowds are by nature fertile grounds for the transmission of the virus. It said to control the pandemic, any and all gatherings must be banned.

On the same day, the National Coronavirus Taskforce’s Scientific Committee suggested university entrance exams be held in open spaces, namely sports stadiums. And sports minister Masoud Soltanifar announced that 8,000 outdoor and indoor sports arenas across Iran will be made available to the National Educational Testing Organization.

However, Health Minister Saeed Namaki rejected appeals to postpone entrance exams until “better days” because, according to him, the situation in the fall will be even more difficult. He said the decision to hold exams must be taken as soon as possible because the uncertainty will create anxiety for students and a long period of anxiety would lower people's immune systems and make students more vulnerable to coronavirus.

Nevertheless, he stated he was still uncertain about the exams because necessary preparations must be made in order to hold them in open spaces, including shutting down phone and internet connections during the hours of testing and providing participants with health kits. It appeared that the minister was not confident these preparations could be taken in time for the exams to go ahead. 

 

Provinces Round-up

According to a report by the health ministry’s Covid-19 Epidemiology Committee, coronavirus infections and fatalities across the country are rising. In the six provinces of Zanjan, Lorestan, Ardebil, Fars, Tehran and East Azerbaijan, the curve of infections and fatalities is flat but at a high level. This curve is rising in the four provinces of Mazandaran, Isfahan, Alborz and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, where the peak might have started, and in Yazd province, with slight variations. According to the report, it appears that the three provinces of Bushehr, Markazi and Hamedan have recently witnessed a peak of the pandemic.

On the other hand, states the report, the curve is falling in the four provinces of Khuzestan, West Azerbaijan, Golestan and South Khorasan and in the three provinces of Hormozgan, Kurdistan and Gilan the situation is relatively stable, with small declines in the number of cases. However, inconsistencies in the data from the eight provinces of Ilam, Kermanshah, North Khorasan, Semnan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Kerman, Razavi Khorasan and Qazvin do not allow a reliable assessment.

The epidemic has been surging in Mazandaran for more than a month and now 20 cities in the province are in a red state of alert and two are “orange,” announced the Mazandaran Coronavirus Taskforce. In the past six weeks, said the taskforce, the number of infections and hospitalizations in the province quadrupled and the surge in cases and hospitalizations is alarming.

The second wave of coronavirus in the city of Babol in Mazandaran has caused many more infections than the first wave and close to 40 percent of hospital beds in the city are occupied by Covid-19 patients, reported Farhad Bagherian, an official of Babol University of Medical Sciences. He said that people’s fear of catching coronavirus has made them afraid of going to hospitals for treatment and this causes the condition of patients to deteriorate, a situation that could lead to the patient’s death.

Recently the province of Qom was again declared an “orange” zone and Siamak Mohebi, vice president of Qom University of Medical Sciences, reported that positive coronavirus test results and hospitalizations in the province continue to rise. He warned that there can be no doubt that if this trend continues for another week Qom would return to a red state of alert and the province’s health system would have a difficult time coping with the situation.

The red alert in East Azerbaijan has been in place for an extensive period and on August 3, Ali-Yar Rastgoo, deputy governor of the province, announced that currently 770 coronavirus patients are hospitalized across East Azerbaijan and most of the cities in the province are in a state of red alert. But, on the same day, Abbas Ali Dorosti, vice president of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, complained that, despite the university’s warnings and written requests, the government of East Azerbaijan is allowing exhibitions to be held in the province.

If health precautions are violated during the upcoming mourning ceremonies for the martyrdom of Imam Hossein and the ceremonies lead to the spread of the virus, it would be wrong under sharia laws because under the laws of Islam, it is forbidden to pursue a voluntary act if  it causes harm to others.

 

The Daily Briefing 

In her daily briefing, Dr. Sima Sadat Lari, the health ministry’s spokeswoman, announced that the provinces of Tehran, Mazandaran, Golestan, East Azerbaijan, Ardebil, Isfahan, Alborz, Razavi Khorasan, Kerman, North Khorasan, Semnan, Markazi, Yazd and Gilan are in a red state of alert and the provinces of West Azerbaijan, Bushehr, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Zanjan, Hamedan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Fars, Hormozgan, Ilam, Lorestan, Qazvin and Qom are “orange.”

As usual, however, it must be noted that this list is not accurate. According to reports by provincial officials and universities of medical sciences, the provinces of South Khorasan, Qazvin, Hamedan, Sistan and Baluchistan and Bushehr have also been in a red state of alert for several days and the provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah and Khuzestan must be added to the “orange” list as well.

In her briefing, Dr. Sadat Lari also announced the official coronavirus statistics for the preceding 24 hours:

 

- New coronavirus cases: 2,598

- New hospitalizations: 1,304

- Total cases since the outbreak: 312,035

- Total coronavirus tests conducted in Iran: 2,534,658

- Total recovered from coronavirus: 270,228

- New fatalities: 215

- Total death toll since the outbreak: 17,405

 

This is part of IranWire's coronavirus chronology. Read the full chronology