Day 141 and 142 - #COVID19 in Iran
A brief update on the critical situation
Picking up from two days ago:
With the hope that COVID-free days are coming soon and we all go back to what we do best. Until then, I will carry on:
[Current Outlook/1]
There is no sign of let-off. Official daily deaths at record level, number of critical cases keep creeping up. Some minor restrictions applied but frankly COVID is just one of the many fronts people are battling in.
[Current Outlook/2]
Rocketing prices and the currency in free fall, widespread corruption and sheer incompetence, political tensions and hopelessness all contributed to a situation where COVID as deadly as it is, looks like a side issue. And the government completely given up.
#IMPORTANT after reports from Tehran, health officials from Kurdistan confirming that they are seeing significant number of reinfection. [Sadly nothing more than anecdotal report, no mention of whether the first infection was verified by PCR]
Meanwhile authorities from the Health Ministry rejecting these reports saying reinfection has never been confirmed anywhere in the world attributing to longer episode.
My take:
1- Iran is the guinea pig, if we see it, we will see it in Iran first
....
...
2- Attributing to longer episode (up to 60 days) not meaningful, these cases seem to be roughly 3-4 months difference.
3- I think for proper verification we have to wait for reports from Spain and Italy. But increasingly it looks like a possibility.
Today President Rouhani announced that 25M Iranians (~30%) have contracted #COVID19.
Frankly I do not see much basis to this claim. I am sure >30% infection rate exists in some areas but in many places still 10-15%. 10M or 25M does not change anything.
We have conflicting reports from Khuzestan (4.7M). The province itself is still red, yet the governor claiming considerable reduction in cases.
What is clear is that there has been stabilisation possibly even improvement which is good considering no meaningful lockdown.
Meanwhile the situation in Qom (1.2M), the original epicentre, just gets worse by the day. Number of hospitalised cases just jumped from 200 to 240 in a matter of a few days.
Also number of hospitals allocated to COVID jumped to 3 - same as the 1st wave.
Province of Mazandaran (3M) which was severely impacted during the first wave has been focus of new attention as the cases keep rising fast, possibly now worse than the 1st wave.
Dr. Farid Jalali @farid__jalali back in April provided a hypothesis on COVID's hyper-coagulability. This is now something that is commonly seen among COVID patients.
After CVA, Iranian doctors found DVT in COVID patients.
Remember these WWII style makeshift hospitals?
Authorities are now finding lack of proper ventilation caused the entire staff of one of these "hospitals" contacting COVID.
OK, that is all I have for tonight.
Stay safe, and good night.
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