Iranian officials have begun outlining what punishments government employees will face if they fail to protect the public from the spread of coronavirus and do not follow regulations regarding public health.
In August, First Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi announced that guidelines would be issued to deal with violations of health protocols, such as people ignoring social distancing and not wearing masks. According to a decree passed by the National Coronavirus Taskforce, government and private entities must not provide services to individuals who are not wearing masks or who do not observe social distancing. It ruled that violators will be punished. The decree instructed government ministries to take action against employees who fail to enforce these guidelines.
On September 6, Jamshid Ansari, one of Rouhani’s vice presidents and the head of Iran’s Administrative and Recruitment Affairs Organization, issued a circular listing the punishments for government employees and directors who fail to enact health guidelines issued by the National Coronavirus Taskforce. The first time individuals violate the rules, they will be given a warning and it will not affect their employment records, but if people commit a further violation, they will face punishment, and each time they violate the regulations, the punishment will become more serious. If an employee disregards regulations five times, he or she will be suspended for up to three months. An employee does not have the right to appeal against the punishments.
On Saturday, September 5, many schools across Iran officially reopened, and many students across the country felt they had been forced to go to school because the government had insisted they must. However, reopening policies varied from area to area. In some places where the number of coronavirus cases was rising or where there was a high level of alert, schools resumed online only. Parents reported being confused about what to do. Many of them were unable to find out whether schools were open or what precautions were being taken because the phone lines to schools and local education departments were jammed and the education ministry’s website was not functioning properly. On September 5 and 6, a number of provincial officials asked parents to not send their children to school if they had any coronavirus symptoms.
The government decision to reopen schools invited criticism from a number of officials and unions, as well as on social media. On the evening of September 5, the Tehran Teachers Union issued a statement. “The Tehran Teachers Union is extremely worried about the reopening of schools and endangering the lives and the wellbeing of teachers and students,” it read. “The union warns that the minister [of education] and his ministry must rethink the situation and its consequences and give priority to the health of more than 15 million students and more than 1.5 million teachers instead of competing with the performance of other ministries and creating a false sense of excitement. Tehran Teachers Union insists that the responsibility for any adverse development in this situation rests with the education ministry.”
The statement also criticized ambiguities in the guidelines for reopening schools and for relying so heavily on teaching staff to protect the health of the students, as well as their own. “The groupings announced by the ministry for places in a yellow, or moderate, state of alert are ambiguous and unclear and, as usual, responsibility for carrying them out has been put on the shoulders of teachers and the schools’ staff,” it said. It also criticized guidelines for areas in a red, or emergency, state of alert, pointing out that “the education ministry has not explained how the teachers will pay for the internet package deals or how hardware for remote learning will be provided.”
On September 6, Mahmoud Habibi, director-general of the education ministry’s Office of Information Technology and Communications, announced that the production of special SIM cards for access to the ministry’s SHAD remote learning network was underway. According to him, the SIM cards will not allow students to access to “improper” content and websites. He said the card would only allow access only to a list of educational websites.
With the start of the school year, the end of holidays and the arrival of autumn and the beginning of the flu season, there is widespread and serious concern that the spread of coronavirus will increase and that it could lead to a third wave across Iran.
Officials promised that the distribution of flu vaccines would start in August, but it did not happen. On September 6, Iran’s Food and Drug Administration made a new promise, stating that the distribution of flu vaccines would start in a couple of weeks. “We have purchased between 10 and 12 million doses of flu vaccine — more than any other year — from reputable brands, including French and Dutch companies. They will be distributed to pharmacies starting in late summer,” said Heydar Mohammadi, director-general of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office for Drugs and Controlled Substances.
According to Mohammadi, the Ministry of Health has advised that “only high-risk groups, meaning those have regular contact with patients because of their jobs, pregnant women, individuals with underlying diseases and the elderly should get a flu vaccine,” stating that the rest of the population did not need it.
In her daily briefing for September 6, the health ministry spokeswoman Dr. Sima Sadat Lari said that, as was the case on September 5, 13 provinces were currently in a red state of alert and 15 provinces were in an orange state.
- Red: Tehran, Mazandaran, Gilan, Qom, Isfahan, Razavi Khorasan, East Azerbaijan, Kerman, North Khorasan, Semnan, Yazd, Zanjan and Qazvin
- Orange: West Azerbaijan, Alborz, Fars, Lorestan, Hormozgan, Ardebil, Bushehr, Kermanshah, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer Ahmad, South Khorasan, Markazi, Ilam, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Golestan and Khuzestan
Dr. Lari also announced the official coronavirus statistics for the last 24 hours:
- New confirmed coronavirus cases: 1,992
- Total cases since the outbreak: 386,658
- New hospitalizations: 905
- Total Covid-19 patients in intensive care units: 3,722
- Total coronavirus tests conducted in Iran: 3,380,264
- Total recovered from coronavirus or released from the hospital: 333,900
- New fatalities: 139
- Total death toll since the outbreak: 22,293
This is part of IranWire's coronavirus chronology. Read the full chronology
Interested in writing for IranWire?
Share your stories.
comments