“Resurgence” of Corona in Iran; Official Number of Cases Reaches 176,000
On her first day as spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Health, Sima Sadat Lari announced that in the past 24 hours, 2,095 new cases of coronavirus were identified in the country, bringing the official number of patients to 175,927.
Ms. Lari, who presented the official coronavirus statistics for Iran on Tuesday, June 9, at noon on Iran’s News Television Network, also stated that 74 more people died from coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
According to her statement, the official death toll from coronavirus in Iran reached 8,425 people, and 2,639 others are under special care in hospitals across the country due to severe conditions of the disease.
Ms. Lari reported the number of recovered patients as 138,457 and the number of coronavirus diagnostic tests conducted in Iran so far as more than 1,128,601.
The Ministry of Health’s spokesperson also reported an increase in coronavirus cases in the provinces of Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Hormozgan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Bushehr, and Kermanshah.
The Ministry of Health’s statistics on the coronavirus situation in Iran are being released while previously some members of parliament and members of the city council had accused the Ministry of Health of concealing statistics about deaths and cases of coronavirus.
The Research Center of Parliament had also previously estimated in a report that the number of deaths was twice and the number of patients was 8 to 10 times the Ministry of Health’s figures.
A notable point in Tuesday’s session of officially announcing coronavirus statistics in Iran was the presence of Kianoush Jahanpour, the dismissed spokesperson of the Ministry of Health, alongside Sima Sadat Lari.
Mr. Jahanpour said that “fortunately” and by order of the Ministry’s senior management, he is handing over the work to Sima Sadat Lari. He made no reference to the reasons for his dismissal.
In the decree of Saeed Namaki, Iran’s Minister of Health, there was no direct reference to Jahanpour’s dismissal, but his advice to Lari to avoid “politicization” has reinforced speculation that his dissatisfaction with the controversial conduct of the former spokesperson on social networks was the reason for his dismissal.
Meanwhile, Mehr News Agency also reported on Tuesday, June 9, in a report about the “resurgence” of coronavirus in Iran.
The news agency wrote that until the early days of June 1399 (2020) when “stricter measures” were being implemented, the statistics were declining. However, in recent days, the rate of infection in Tehran and other “travel-prone” cities has increased again.
According to IRNA, Ehsan Mostafavi, a member of the National Epidemiology Committee for COVID-19, also spoke about the “relatively rapid upward” trend of coronavirus infections, saying that increased disease detection, reopenings, and non-compliance with protocols are factors in this upward trend.
Stating that second and third waves of the disease are expected to occur in some provinces, he added that “it is possible” that restrictions will again be imposed in some provinces.
According to Mr. Mostafavi, we are to live with coronavirus, and it is predicted that 15 million people of Iran’s population have experienced infection with the coronavirus since the beginning of the epidemic until now.
The trend of increasing coronavirus cases surged again after some decision-making officials in Iran pursued the policy of reopening after coronavirus.
In this context, Hassan Rouhani, the President, insists that businesses cannot be shut down and people must cope with these conditions.
He has even called requests to shut down businesses “counterrevolutionary,” a characterization repeated by some media outlets domestically.
Source: Radio Farda
