Fears for Journalists and Rural Populations as Covid-19 Leads to Events Crackdown

July 3

Health officials worry that coronavirus would spread to villages and rural areas

Health officials have expressed fears that coronavirus is moving towards villages: a serious cause for concern, as handling the epidemic in the rural areas is likely to be markedly more difficult than in more developed zones. More and more provinces are falling back into the high-risk “red” state in Iran and on July 3, more hospitals reported shortages of beds, staff and equipment to deal with Covid-19 cases.

At the same time, the head of Iran’s Administrative and Recruitment Affairs Organization, Jamshid Ansari, insisted that people were in need of government services and, therefore, the government would not agree to close its offices during the crisis. Ansari added that working remotely would be possible when the infrastructure for it was in place. For the time being, any reduction of in-person presence at government offices will only be considered on a case-by-case basis, and only if the situation becomes as critical as it was in March.

Separately, concerns have been raised for the welfare of two other types of frontline workers aside from medical staff: military officers and journalists. In response to the first, Gholamreza Rahimipour, an officer with the General Staff of the Armed Forces, claimed that compared to the general population, the infection rate among soldiers is still very low because of the health protocols observed in military barracks. But Mohammad Reza Mahboub-Far, a member of the National Coronavirus Taskforce, said most reporters are in danger of getting infected because they have to attend press conferences and use public transport, and generally have no health insurance.

What the Daily Briefing Told Us

In the past 24 hours, 2,566 new coronavirus cases have been identified of whom 1,483 have been hospitalized, bringing the official total of infections since the pandemic started to 235,429, reported Dr. Sima Sadat Lari, the health ministry’s spokeswoman. Over the same 24 hours, the official Iranian death toll from Covid-19 climbed to 11,260 as another 154 Covid-19 patients were reported to have died.

The provinces of Khuzestan, Kurdistan, West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Hormozgan, Bushehr, Razavi Khorasan, Ilam and Kermanshah were described as still being in a “red” state while Tehran, Fars, Mazandaran, Hamedan, Zanjan, Sistan and Baluchistan and Alborz were ranked as “orange”.

Provinces Round-Up: More Restrictions, Zahedan Residents Charged for Tests

Anooshirvan Mohseni Bandpey, governor of Tehran province, claimed on July 3 that he had opposed the complete reopening of public transportation in Tehran from the very beginning because, with the high volume of passengers, social distancing would be impossible and now the number of infections and fatalities in Tehran has spiked. He said that the chances of working remotely must be explored fully. Meanwhile Dr. Ilad Alavi, a specialist in infectious diseases at Tehran’s Loghman-e Hakim Hospital, said almost every day a new ICU ward must be created in Tehran and if the current situation continues, medical staff will be unable to do their jobs.

New restrictions will be imposed in the persistently “red” province of Kermanshah from July 3, announced Masoud Bahramnejad, spokesman for the Kermanshah Coronavirus Taskforce. But he emphasized that despite the rising number of Covid-19 cases, lockdown of the province is “not on the agenda.”

The governor of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, Hossein Kalantari, also warned that infections in his province were on the rise. He said he was putting residents on notice that if they do not follow health guidelines and things go on as they are now, fatalities could reach “an incredible number”.

Six state labs in Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchistan province are conducting coronavirus tests 24 hours a day and as of now, have performed 15,000 tests, reported Mohammad Hashemi Shahri, president of Zahedan University of Medical Science. But Shahri added an important caveat: from now on, these labs will only provide free tests to individuals aged 60 or over, or those with a doctor’s note. Others, he said, could pay private labs for the tests. These labs can apparently conduct 50 to 70 tests per day.

Six cities in Mazandaran province are again “red”, said Ahmad Hossein-Zadegan, the governor of Mazandaran, who reiterated that wearing masks in public spaces would become mandatory from July 5. If this situation continues, he said, some restrictions would be re-imposed in “red” cities and towns.

According to an ordinance issued by the National Coronavirus Taskforce, new lockdowns and restrictions will be imposed in red cities of Bushehr province for one week starting on July 4, announced Abdolkarim Gravand, governor of the province. He said wearing masks in all government offices would be mandatory, educational, cultural, sports, entertainment and religious centers would close and government employees with underlying diseases would have to work remotely.

Although restrictions were imposed in the six “red” cities of Jahrom, Khonj, Larestan, Gerash, Evaz and Fesa in Fars province two weeks ago, no ban has been issued on traveling in or out of the province and this has made the situation more difficult, said Abdolreza Ghasempour, deputy governor of Fars at a meeting of Fars Coronavirus Taskforce. He pointed out that the provincial government has no authority to ban travels in and out of the province.

Coronavirus beds in the two hospitals of Sirjan city in Kerman province are filled, warned Dr. Gholam Abas Mohammadi, president of Sirjan University of Medical Sciences. He added that if the number of infections increases sharply, staff will be forced to empty one of these hospitals of other patients and give it over completely to Covid-19 patients.

Dr. Abdolrasoul Hemmati, vice president of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, warned that the four hospitals allocated to coronavirus patients were similarly almost filled to capacity and if this trend continues these hospitals will no longer be able to admit new patients.

West Azerbaijan is in a “red” state and, compared to April 2020, the daily coronavirus death toll in the province has increased threefold, reported Ali Mostafavi, West Azerbaijan’s deputy governor. He reported that new restrictions have been approved and will take effect tomorrow, July 4.

Directors of the Friday Imams’ policy councils in provinces of Mazandaran and Fars announced that Friday Prayers will not be held in “red” zones of thois province. The same situation exists in almost all red cities in Iran. Similarly in Mashhad, legal action will be taken against organizers of illegal wedding and mourning ceremonies, said Ali Asghar Hosseini, an official of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.