Getting dire. As one could predict (and I did two weeks ago), deaths follow cases with a 2-4 wks latency. And today official deaths climb over 100 for the 1st time in two months. And now 8 provinces in status red, last week was just one.
The process for defining status Red is opaque and prolly not very scientific since provinces keep come in and out of it. But today these provinces are red (sorry 7, not 8):
- Khuzestan
- Hormozgan
- Bushehr
- Sistan
- Kurdistan
- Kermanshah
- W Azerbaijan isna.ir/news/990325159…
But out of 31 provinces almost all Red or show a rising trend (so matter of time before they become red) except:
- Semnan
- Razavi Khorasan
- S Khorasan
- Charmahal
- Gilan
So RISING TREND in 26 provinces out of 31... where are we heading??
Short:
- Officials in Kerman worried but expect a tough autumn (not summer)
- Reports that 57% of Golestan province population had COVID - that does not seem right. It has not lead to Herd Immunity either, trend is rising there.
- Death of two kids in Torbat-e-Jaam due to COVID
#IMPORTANT And now we have reports from Khuzestan that they have actually run out of hospital beds in Abadan (earlier we had reports of hospitals just full of COVID patients). They are now short of 300 beds in this city of 231K population.
Dr. Zali in Tehran is reporting that social distancing observance is down from 62% to only 11% and warning that we could go back to the lockdown if this trend continues. Surely the hot season has not helped as thought earlier.
Have not seen collapsed cases for some time but this one is from Friday:
OK, everyday my thread has one non-COVID topic. Some days fires, some days locust attacks, others suicide, etc.
Today it is about the drop in the growth of population which has worried the Supreme Leader immensely.
He is on the belief that so much of the power of a nation comes from its population, both economically and also so that they can join the army and fight. And in many occasions in the past 5 years he has stressed the strategy of rising population.
But the growth keeps dropping.
Now it is at lowest ever: <1%. And it is predicted to reach 0 in 10-15 years.
This has raised all sorts of alarm bells and officials are going out of their way to somehow stop the trend in accordance with the Supreme Leader.
Head of the Centre for the Passive Defence Strategies, an ex-IRGC colonel, has raised the alarm bells saying this is not just a social problem, it is a political and economical problem.
Iran's population over the last 40 years, after the revolution, has jumped from ~32M to ~82M. Considering the economy is mainly based on selling oil and Iran's oil export has been on the decline over the last few decades (with the growing internal need), people have got poorer.
They just cannot afford to have more children. They cannot even get married, number of marriages have fallen by 40% just in 10 years. And divorces have rocketed due to economical (and social) factors.
It then, however, turned out to be the work of Islamic Republic's own intelligence ministry. They finally accepted that an "autonomous cell" within the ministry led by Saied Emami had gone rogue and planned and executed the attack.
With that in the back of Iranian minds, terrorist attack on Shah Cheragh shrine in Shiraz was immediately dismissed as the work of the Islamic Republic itself, especially considering the timing (protests).
But it is undeniable that ISIS has claimed responsibility and released 👇
Today, dozens of cities around the world will witness human chains of Iranians extending for miles.
This has been planned for London too, sadly I do not feel well enough to go.
After weeks and weeks of reactive handling of the protests in the hope of them fizzling out, today the regime is planning to use today's burial procession of Shiraz terrorist attack victims to take the initiative back again.
IRGC Commander again declared the end of protests.
As you can see from the images above, even for a neutral event where everyone would condemn such cowardly terrorist attack (and I do too), the regime failed to bring masses to the street.
Believe me I chose busiest pics, check them for yourself.
#BREAKING The country is in turmoil and it feels like the regime is losing the grip - which is not necessarily good news since this might mean we enter a military phase.
People are reported to be in control of Town of Mahabad in Kurdistan
Funny thing is that taghvim.com website used commonly by Iranians says today is 30th of Rabi al-Awwal. All other calendars say today is 1st of Rabi-ali-Thaani.
It cannot be ISIS!
My Arab followers, can you please tell me what day it is according to Hijri calendar?
Some calendars I found say 28th, some 29th, some 1st ...
#IranProtests2022 5th week of incessant protests (29th day) starting today with reports of ongoing protests in Karaj, Rashst, Hamedan and Shahinshahr.
It is 1:30 PM local time.
This is students today in Sanandaj.
In Ardabil where a high school student was allegedly beaten to death (we have not yet been able to confirm or disprove) protesters have clashed with the security forces.