“Do not travel during the Muharram holiday”

The situation in 13 Iranian provinces, including those bordering the Caspian Sea, is red due to the spread of the coronavirus. However, the country's Road and Transportation Organization has predicted that about two million vehicles will be on the roads during the upcoming holidays.

Information released by the Iranian Ministry of Health shows that 13 provinces in the country are in a red state due to the spread of the coronavirus. The provinces of Tehran, Mazandaran, Gilan, Qom, Isfahan, Khorasan Razavi, East Azerbaijan, Kerman, North Khorasan, Semnan, Yazd, Zanjan and Qazvin are in a “red” state due to the high number of coronavirus cases. Another 15 provinces out of the total 31 provinces in the country are in a “warning” state.

Despite the widespread spread of the coronavirus across the country, the National Coronavirus Task Force has not yet issued an order to impose further restrictions during the upcoming holidays.

Saturday and Sunday, September 8th and 9th, corresponding to the 9th and 10th of the month of Muharram, are official holidays. Traffic police say that traffic on the country's roads will increase from the weekend, Thursday and Friday, September 6th and 7th, especially on the route to the Caspian Sea provinces.

The Mazandaran Traffic Police, one of the red provinces in the coronavirus pandemic, announced an increase in the volume of traffic entering Mazandaran province on Wednesday, September 25. Colonel Alireza Ghadami said at the same time: "Unfortunately, the traffic police cannot close the entrance routes to this province because Mazandaran province is in a red situation or impose restrictions and prohibitions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and an order from the National Headquarters for Combating Coronavirus must be issued for this."

The head of Mazandaran Traffic Police further added that restrictions, including temporary one-way closures, will only be imposed in the event of traffic jams on the province's entrance roads.

The country's Road Transport and Highways Organization predicts that about two million vehicles will be on Iran's roads during the upcoming four-day holiday. The head of the organization, however, emphasized that "we are only responsible for reviewing the statistics and recording them, and making decisions in this regard is within the scope of the duties of other competent officials."

Abdul Hashem Hassannia, head of the Road Transport and Highways Organization, pointed out the direct relationship between intercity and interprovincial travel and the spread of the coronavirus, telling ISNA: "Whenever people forget to stay home and travel for a few days, the number of coronavirus cases in the country increases a few days and weeks later."

He has urged people to avoid unnecessary travel during the upcoming holidays and to help improve the country's infection rate by adhering to the announced protocols.

Ministry of Health statistics show that 3,831 patients with COVID-19 are currently in hospital in critical condition. There are no clear statistics on the total number of hospital beds in intensive care units.

A few weeks before the coronavirus pandemic, Ali Amir Savadkouhi, head of the Iranian Intensive Care Association, said that there were 7,200 ICU beds in the country, which did not meet the needs of intensive care unit patients.

In January, at the 7th International Congress of Intensive Care Medicine in Iran, he said that it was not possible to increase these beds given the country's economic problems, referring to the cost of setting up each ICU bed, which was estimated at 1.5 to 2 billion tomans at the time.

Nader Tavakoli, deputy director of the Tehran Province's coronavirus response headquarters, said in July that the capacity of hospitals in the city that accept coronavirus patients is being filled. According to Tavakoli, about 100 hospitals in Tehran are accepting coronavirus patients.

Iran has a total of 950 hospitals and medical centers. Since July, an average of 2,000 new cases of coronavirus have been recorded in Iran every day, and the number of patients requiring hospitalization in intensive care units has been increasing every day, before previous patients recover and are discharged.