Corona "resurgence" in Iran; official number of infected people reaches 176,000

On her first day as spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Health, Sima Sadat Lari announced that in the past 24 hours, 2,095 new cases of coronavirus have been identified in the country, bringing the official number of infected people to 175,927.

Ms. Lari, who was presenting official statistics on the coronavirus in Iran on Iran Television News Channel on Tuesday afternoon, June 10, also said that 74 more people had died from the coronavirus in the past 24 hours.

According to his statements, the official number of coronavirus victims in Iran has reached 8,425, and 2,639 people are in critical condition in hospitals across the country.

Ms. Lari announced the number of recovered people as 138,457 and the number of coronavirus tests conducted in Iran so far as more than 1,128,601.

The Ministry of Health spokesman also announced an increase in the number of 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 published at a time when some members of parliament and city council members have previously accused the Ministry of Health of concealing the number of deaths and infections from coronavirus.

The Parliamentary Research Center had previously estimated in a report that the number of deaths was double and the number of infected people was 8 to 10 times higher than the Ministry of Health's figures.

One of the interesting points at Tuesday's meeting to officially announce the coronavirus statistics in Iran was the presence of Kianoush Jahanpour, the dismissed spokesman for the Ministry of Health, alongside Sima Sadat Lari.

Mr. Jahanpour said that he was “fortunately” and “on the orders of the highest official in the ministry,” handing over the job to Sima Sadat Lari. He did not mention any reasons for his dismissal.

The ruling by Iranian Health Minister Saeed Namaki also did not directly mention Jahanpour's dismissal, but his advice to Lari to avoid "politicizing" has reinforced speculation that his dissatisfaction with the former spokesman's marginalizing performance on social media was the reason for his dismissal.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, June 10, Mehr News Agency reported on the "resurgence" of the coronavirus in Iran.

The news agency wrote that until the beginning of June 2020, when "more intensive monitoring" was being implemented, the number of cases was declining. However, in recent days, the number of infections in Tehran and other "travel-friendly" cities has been rising again.

According to IRNA, Ehsan Mostafavi, a member of the National Committee for Covid-19 Epidemiology, also said about the "relatively rapid upward trend" in coronavirus infections, adding that increased testing, reopenings, and failure to comply with protocols are among the factors behind this upward trend.

He said that second and third waves of the disease are expected to occur in some provinces, adding that it is "possible" that restrictions will be reimposed in some provinces.

According to Mr. Mostafavi, we are supposed to live with the coronavirus, and it is predicted that 15 million Iranians have been infected with the coronavirus since the beginning of the epidemic.

The trend of increasing cases of coronavirus peaked again after some decision-making authorities in Iran adopted a post-coronavirus reopening policy.

Meanwhile, President Hassan Rouhani insists that businesses cannot be closed and that people must come to terms with these conditions.

He even called the call for a shutdown a "counter-revolutionary" demand, which is being repeated by some media outlets domestically.

Source: Radio Farda