Iran Racked by Post-New Year Fourth Wave of Coronavirus

On Thursday, April 8, Iran broke its official record for new coronavirus infections for the third day in a row, with 22,586 new cases confirmed in a 24-hour period.

The surge follows the end of the long Iranian New Year holiday, which started on March 21 and saw millions of Iranians travel and visit one another to attend festivities, in the absence of an all-out ban from the government.

The more recently-detected variants of SARS-CoV-2 continue to run rampant in Iran. Hospitals across the country are dealing with a rapid increase in inpatients, with 1,000 people now being admitted to hospital every day in Tehran province.

The situation in other provinces is no better. More than 85 percent of cities in Iran are now on red or orange alert for coronavirus transmission. There are also reports that the variant first detected in Brazil has emerged in Khuzestan province.

In the same period, Iranians have received no useful or important news about Iran’s tentative vaccination drive, which is now more important than ever.

Doubts about Domestic Vaccine

Iran’s Food and Drug Administration is responsible for approving both foreign-made and domestic Covid-19 vaccines. This week, the agency’s spokesman, Kianoush Jahanpour, tweeted blandly that Iranian vaccines were a “national honor”.

Another Twitter user commented that she had no problem with Iranian vaccines, but they needed to be approved by reputable international organization. In response, the former Health Ministry spokesman tweeted back: “You don’t have to get it. It’s not compulsory.”

Last winter the Islamic Republic launched a bloated propaganda campaign to promote its domestically-made coronavirus vaccines, including Coviran-Barekat, which is made by a parastatal conglomerate under the control of the Supreme Leader.

But since then, the date for these vaccines’ beginning to be administered to the public has been pushed back further and further by officials. Initially it had been promised that Iranian-made vaccines would be ready for use by late May 2021. Now, mass inoculations have been postponed until September.

Tehran Hospitals Running out of Beds

Dr. Nader Tavakoli, deputy director of Tehran Coronavirus Taskforce, warned that for three days straight more than 1,000 Covid-19 patients had been hospitalized in greater Tehran. The trend, he said, was continuing, and was clear evidence of a “fourth wave” of infections in Iran.

In total, some 5,400 people with Covid-19 are currently being treated in hospitals in Tehran province. Dr. Alireza Zali, director of Tehran’s Coronavirus Taskforce, also reported that some 300 people with Covid-19 in Tehran were having to wait on emergency wards for hospital beds to become available.

He described the new surge of infections as “complicated and dangerous” and reported that, except for three small towns, every city in the province is now on red alert. For her part Dr. Minoo Mohraz, a member of the National Coronavirus Taskforce, described the situation in Tehran as “black” and said the highly contagious coronavirus variant first detected in Britain was responsible for the recent rise in fatalities.

The Iranian Health Ministry has announced that non-essential businesses must close in all of the 257 cities currently on red alert. Tehran’s great bazaar will go into lockdown for two weeks starting on Saturday, April 10. In a number of other provinces including Gilan and Fars, Friday prayers have also been suspended in all cities until further notice.

Official Coronavirus Statistics

According to the official statistics announced daily by the health ministry’s spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari, a total of 1,125 patients were registered as having lost their lives to Covid-19 in the week ending April 8.

By the week’s end, 4,221 Covid-19 patients were also being treated in ICUs.

Dr. Lari also reported that 257 cities in Iran are now on red alert and 129 are classed as orange. According to a decision by the National Coronavirus Taskforce’s, traveling from and to red and orange cities is banned. The number of cities on yellow alert is currently 51 and only 11 cities are on “blue”, the lowest coronavirus alert level.

One Hospitalization Every Nine Minutes in Kermanshah

In the 24 hours before noon on April 8, one Covid-19 patient was hospitalized every nine minutes in Kermanshah, reported Mehdi Mohammadi, a spokesman for Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences. He added that the number of inpatients in hospitals run by this university had now climbed to 527, of whom 156 were hospitalized in the past 24 hours.

Mohammadi also said that more than 30 percent of coronavirus tests recently conducted in Kermanshah have been positive and this ought to “sound the alarm” for the whole province. The new surge in infections, he said, has just begun and is unlikely to “peak” for some time.

A New Coronavirus Variant in Khuzestan?

Khuzestan was hit by the coronavirus variant first discovered in Britain a few weeks before the rest of Iran. The situation in the province is still being described as “dangerous”. In the assessment of Dr. Mohammad Alavi, president of Khuzestan Health Center, every city in the province – regardless of the official alert level – is in the “danger zone”.

“We cannot immediately increase hospital beds,” he said, “and the University of Medical Sciences has gone to incredible trouble to convert regular beds to specialized beds for Covid-19 patients.”

In the western zones of the provincial capital of Ahvaz, out of every 600 coronavirus tests conducted, around 50 percent have been positive. Ghasem Soleimani Dashtaki, Khuzestan’s governor, said it is likely that the coronavirus variant first detected in Brazil has now entered the province. He emphasized that the borders between Khuzestan and Iraq are still closed and foreign travelers cannot enter Iran through this province.

Field Hospitals in Qazvin

Qazvin was one of the main transit points for travelers during Nowruz, the Iranian new year’s holidays, and this has fueled a new surge in coronavirus infections. In just 24 hours before noon of April 8, four Covid-19 patients died and around 100 new patients were hospitalized.

Manouchehr Habibi, director of Qazvin Coronavirus Taskforce, announced that a set of new two-week restrictions had been imposed on the province and reported that the army is setting up a field hospital in Qazvin to treat the overflow of Covid-19 patients. Six of the seven counties in Qazvin are now on red alert.

Tragic Family Gathering in Hormozgan

In the southern province of Hormozgan, a favourite destination of travelers in late winter and early spring, six cities have been put on red alert and three on orange alert.

An official of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences reported that all six participants in a family gathering had been infected with coronavirus, and the mother had since died from Covid-19.

The latest official statistics state that as of now Covid-19 has claimed 1,067 lives in Hormozgan: a figure likely to be several times short of the real number.