D.he exclamation from the head of Tehran’s central cemetery is descriptive of the dramatic course of the corona pandemic in Iran. Never in the past fifty years have so many dead been buried every day, he told the Iranian news agency Ilna. More than in the worst phases of the war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988. For about 150 of the average 350 corpses that are currently buried daily in the central cemetery, Covid-19 is recorded on the death certificate as the cause. However, the number of unreported cases is likely to be much higher. Many Iranians report that other causes, such as heart failure, are often incorrectly stated. On March 25, only 74 Covid 19 deaths were officially registered nationwide. The number rose sharply to 453 by the end of last week before declining slightly over the weekend.
The fourth wave fully captured Iran and its 82 million inhabitants. The government is trying to calm down by declaring that Iran is part of the global trend. However, the impact is due to home-made factors. For example, the government lifted travel restrictions for the Iranian New Year holiday Nouruz, which began on March 21. In order to curb the subsequently rapidly increasing numbers, it imposed a ten-day lockdown on April 10. Most of the shops have officially closed since then, even if the shutters are often only halfway down and the doors are open; Schools and universities do distance learning. However, the number of daily infections has risen unchecked from 7500 to over 25,000 since March 25. Since the fasting month of Ramadan, during which families visit each other in the evening, began on April 13th, it is considered unlikely that the lockdown will break the wave.
Emergency hospitals in Tehran
Almost a hundred hospitals take care of Covid patients in Tehran. The intensive care units no longer have any free capacity, said Nader Tavakkoli from the Iranian Corona crisis team last week. The sick are treated in the courtyards of the hospitals, and emergency hospitals have been set up in Tehran. The numbers are also so high because Iran hardly imported any vaccine and vaccinated very little. According to the government, 1.9 million vaccine doses have so far been delivered mainly from Russia, but also from India. Priority was given to vaccinating doctors and medical staff, as well as workers in cemeteries and in garbage disposal. On April 15, Iran signed a contract for 60 million doses of Sputnik V vaccine.
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In public, more and more prominent clergy like the 94-year-old Ayatollah Ahmad Dschannati appear without a mask, and revolutionary leader Ali Khamenei has recently been holding meetings again without maintaining the usual distance. Many Iranians suspect that the leadership got the vaccine from Biontech / Pfizer, even though Khamenei had refused to buy vaccines from the West at the beginning of the vaccination debate.
Postponement of the presidential election?
Officially, the number of those who tested positive in Iran is 2.4 million. However, in an interview with the FAZ, Iranians report that most of them were infected in their environment. President Hassan Rouhani himself had already in July 2020, based on studies by the Ministry of Health, not ruled out a number of at least 20 million infected people at the time. In Iran, therefore, there is a discussion as to why the country has not yet achieved herd immunity and is being hit by a fourth wave.
Against this background, it is increasingly likely that the election of a new president, scheduled for June 18, could be postponed. A sign of this is that no serious candidates have yet announced their candidacy.
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source https://pledgetimes.com/fourth-corona-wave-there-are-now-more-burials-in-iran-than-during-the-war/
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