Qom Clerics Call for Covid Taskforce Leader to be Fired

Clerics in Qom have called for the spokesman for the National Coronavirus Taskforce to be dismissed and put on trial for saying recent religious gatherings helped spread coronavirus.

Qom Seminary and Friday Prayers Headquarters objected to comments made by Alireza Raeesi at a press conference, during which he criticized authorities’ decision to allow ceremonies to go ahead, and said it had led to further cases of the virus.

The Friday Imam’s Policy Council public relations office called for Raeesi's resignation and insisted that Friday prayers in Qom had been held in full compliance with health protocols. The statement it released further claimed that in his sermon before the prayers, the Friday Imam had praised health officials and had reminded the congregation that they must follow health guidelines.

Another religious organization, the Seminary Headquarters of the Islamic Revolution, went even further. It appealed to health minister Saeed Namaki, calling for not only for the dismissal of Raeesi but also for him to be put on trial because his “overblown” statements led to what it described as a “new wave of Qom-phobia”.

Since the outbreak of coronavirus, there has been a consistent tug of war between religious leaders and health officials over religious ceremonies and gatherings — events that seemed to pose an obvious potential breeding ground for the virus.

The most recent example was Fatimiyya, the days when Muslims, Shias in particular, mourn the martyrdom of Fatimiyya al-Zahra, the youngest daughter of the Prophet Mohammad in 632 AD, even though such gatherings were specifically banned. Videos and photographs taken on the streets of a number of Iranian cities revealed that processions took place regardless, during which many participants disregarded social distancing and other health protocols.

 

“Traditional” Remedies Approved to Treat Coronavirus

Another tug of war that has been raging since the pandemic started has been the one over “traditional” medicines used to treat coronavirus, mostly championed by various clergymen and individuals with dubious medical credentials. On January 19, Dr. Nafiseh Hossein-Yekta, director general of the health ministry’s Iranian and Supplementary Medicine department, announced that the ministry had received more than 90 recommendations that it study “traditional and herbal remedies” to treat coronavirus. As of January 19, approximately 45 such studies had been carried out. According to her, some of the remedies had received permits from Iran’s Food and Drug Administration, labeled as “drugs that help in the treatment of coronavirus”. The rest are under review.

 

The Highly Contagious Coronavirus Strain “Mostly in Tehran”

Recently it was announced that at least five cases of the highly-contagious coronavirus strain first detected in England had been identified in Tehran. On January 19, without giving any specifics, Shokrollah Hossein-Beigi, deputy provincial governor for political and social affairs, announced that, although other cases of this coronavirus variant had been found in other parts of Iran, the majority of the cases have been identified in Tehran. He said they would attempt to quarantine people who had been in close contact with these individuals.

Reporting that in recent days the number of coronavirus outpatients had grown by two percent, Hossein-Beigi said that a greater percentage of Covid-19 fatalities happen among young people. A day earlier, on January 18, Dr. Alireza Zali, director of the Tehran Coronavirus Taskforce, had said that in the last two weeks the number of hospitalizations of patients in the age group between five and 17 had increased. “Although, in absolute terms, the rate of fatalities among those younger than 10 is low, we have witnessed an increase in deaths among individuals 10 years old and younger,” said Dr. Zali.

In the last 24 hours the number of hospitalizations in Tehran province reached 1,915; out of this number, about 760 people are being treated at ICUs.

At least 33 cities in Tehran province are on red or orange alert. Although some neighboring countries have been vaccinating their citizens for a few weeks, it is still not clear when Iran will start coronavirus vaccinations.

 

Provinces Round-up

Most Iranian cities are now in a relatively stable situation in terms of Covid-19 infections and fatalities but a number of provinces, including the northern provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran, are in a situation that health officials describe as “fragile,” and the provinces of Tehran, Khuzestan and Kermanshah are unstable, although their Covid-19 numbers have yet to reach an alarming level.

The number hospitalizations in Mazandaran has reached 1,346 and restrictions and lockdowns in the province still continue although, according to some reports, the restrictions are not seriously enforced. “Inter-city traffic restrictions were enacted but, for whatever reason, the responsible officials were not able to reduce the volume of travelers to northern provinces,” Fars News Agency reported.

Earlier, various officials had said that a large number of Covid-19 cases in the province had been found in rural areas. They stated that the main reason behind this phenomenon was the arrival of the harvesting season for kiwi and citrus fruits and that seasonal workers add to the density of population in these areas.

The number of coronavirus infections and fatalities in Khuzestan has been increasing in recent days, said Dr. Mohammad Alavi, vice president of Ahvaz Jondishapur University of Medical Sciences. He warned that if this trend continues, the province would witness another peak of the pandemic, even though currently almost all cities in the province are in a blue, the least dangerous, state of alert. This applied to every city in the province except Abadan, which is on yellow alert.

According to Dr. Alavi, during the previous week the number of Covid-19 cases increased by 64 percent compared to a week earlier. The number of hospitalizations, he said, increased by 31 percent, and the number of fatalities by seven percent. He warned that, with the spread of more contagious strains of coronavirus in the world, another surge of the epidemic would be more deadly and the only way to prevent this surge is to follow health protocols because vaccines have yet to go into mass production.

In the 24-hour period spanning January 18 and January 19, 100 new Covid-19 cases were identified in Zanjan and seven people were hospitalized. Currently 147 people with coronavirus are hospitalized across the province and, with the death of another Covid-19 patient, the official death toll in the province reached 1,119.

In Kermanshah, 49 new patients with coronavirus symptoms were hospitalized in the last 24 hours, 32 patients were released and, with the death of one Covid-19 patient, the death toll in the province now stands at 1,440. Currently, 169 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized in Kermanshah and, after a few weeks of decline, the number of visits to the hospitals by people suffering from coronavirus symptoms has increased again.

In Kurdistan, currently 105 Covid-19 patients are hospitalized, more than half of them in the provincial capital of Sanandaj, reported Dr. Farzin Rezaei, president of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences, who added that 31 of these patients are being treated at intensive care units. He said that, in the last 24 hours, there have been no confirmed Covid-19 fatalities and the death toll for the province remains at 1,046.

 

Iran’s Latest Coronavirus Statistics

In her daily briefing for January 19, the health ministry spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari announced the official coronavirus statistics for the last 24 hours:

 

 

Dr. Lari reported that currently 10 Iranian cities are on red alert, 23 cities are in an orange state of alert, 163 are yellow and 252 are blue. All 10 cities on red alert are located in Mazandaran province.

 

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