Iran Hits New Record High of Covid-19 Deaths

While the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread more rapidly in Iran, many health officials have started being more direct, mincing their words less and less. They say that hospitals are running out, or have already run out, of beds. Several have said official statistics should be doubled or even quadrupled to arrive at the actual numbers. Quarantines and lockdowns have been imposed in 25 provinces and 89 cities and counties but coronavirus appears to be one step ahead of Iranian officials.

In the last two months Mohsen Hashemi, president of Tehran City Council, has repeatedly called for a two-week total lockdown of the nation’s capital. “We must take the necessary decisions before coronavirus does its work; we must not walk behind coronavirus and allow it to do whatever it wants,” he said at a city council meeting on Sunday, November 1. Hashemi said the third wave of coronavirus, which started over a month ago, has picked up speed and if nothing is done to contain the spread of the virus it might lead to “a tsunami of death” in the coming month.

On the same day, the Tehran Safety Committee for the city council and Parliament’s Health Committee presented a proposal for lockdown to the National Coronavirus Taskforce’s Security Committee. If the proposal is approved and implemented, all private and government offices, except emergency services, will be closed for two weeks and restrictions on traffic and movement within the city will be imposed as well.

Coronavirus is going to be with us for a further year, predicted First Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi. “Weddings are slaughterhouses and holding mourning ceremonies for the dead is totally meaningless” in these conditions, he said. “Singing and shouting increases the possibility of transmission by 50 percent.”

Over the last week, many provincial officials have also warned against holding wedding and mourning ceremonies, and prosecutors in various cities have stated they will not tolerate these ceremonies and people ignoring the rules will face punishment. There have been reports that at least one groom and a number of wedding organizers have been arrested.

With the increase in the number of coronavirus fatalities, the number of mourning ceremonies has increased considerably. According to Yahya Eydi, Kermanshah’s deputy mayor, every day an average of 100 people go to the city’s cemetery to participate in burial ceremonies. “We have allocated a maximum of one hour to the burial of the deceased,” he said. “We try to arrange burial ceremonies in a way so it will not lead to crowds gathering and we ask people who come to the cemetery to respect this one-hour limit to prevent any problems.”

In Mashhad, Mohammad Reza Hashemi, the city’s governor, announced that “all gatherings and ceremonies” were forbidden.

The new “Operations Base” of the National Coronavirus Taskforce, which was established by the order of Ayatollah Khamenei to supervise and implement decisions the taskforce makes, has yet to take any significant action, but it is predicted that it will turn the fight against coronavirus into more of a security operation, including enforcing harsh restrictions and lockdowns.

So far neither the police or members of the public have been taking the National Coronavirus Taskforce’s decisions very seriously. On October 31, Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri announced that the judiciary had a duty to cooperate with the taskforce. “The decisions by this taskforce must have executive guarantee because without such guarantees we will not get results,” he said.

Provinces Round-up

In the 24-hour period spanning October 31 and November 1, 14 further coronavirus patients died in Alborz, bringing the total death toll in the province to 1,711, according to Dr. Mohammad Fathi, president of Alborz University of Medical Sciences. He said that during the same 24 hours 102 new patients with Covid-19 symptoms were admitted to the hospitals and as of November 1, 869 people with confirmed or suspected cases of coronavirus were hospitalized across the province.

Prior to this, provincial officials had presented the Ministry of Interior with a proposal to declare Thursdays a day off to help control the rate of infections, but they have yet to receive an answer.

As of November 1, the number of hospitalizations in Yazd province stood at 959, setting a new record. On that date,173 coronavirus patients in critical condition were in intensive care units (ICUs), reported Ebrahim Salmani, spokesman for Yazd University of Medical Sciences, who also reported that 104 patients suspected of Covid-19 were waiting to be admitted to emergency wards at the hospitals. He pleaded with the people of Yazd to not leave home unless necessary and to not gather in crowds.

Between October 28 and November 1, 37 patients in the city of Koohdasht in the province of Lorestan tested positive for Covid-19, reported Mashallah Nemati, the city’s governor, who ordered businesses in Koohdasht to close down.

In Tehran, the municipality ordered sports centers to close for 10 days, starting on Wednesday, November 4.

Iran’s Latest Coronavirus Statistics

In her daily briefing for November 1, the health ministry spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari announced the official coronavirus statistics for the last 24 hours:

Dr. Lari also reported that all 31 Iranian provinces are in red, orange or yellow states of alert.

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