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.
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 π
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.