June 17, 2022
have fallen to the lowest levels since the disease first erupted, with the deaths
on some days totaling zero and the number of new cases just a few dozen.
The number of new cases, which was consistently above 30,000 every day in the first third of February, was last above 1,000 on April 27 and has been below 250 every day since May 26, with the numbers on several days in single digits.
Many government officials continue to wear masks in an effort to make the public aware that the disease may return with a vengeance if they stop paying attention. But the public seems to have put the pandemic behind it.
The number of people getting vaccinated has plummeted to the point that the government on June 1 even stopped publishing daily figures on the number of vaccinations, apparently finding those statistics embarrassing. The daily number of vaccinations in May averaged just over 33,000, while as recently as March, even with the distractions of Now Ruz, the daily average was over 170,000.
According to the self-reporting by countries, Iran has the 66th highest death rate in the world. While that does not appear bad, it is the worst in Asia, a continent that largely missed the disease. Of the countries with higher death rates than Iran, 35 were in Europe, 25 in the Americas and just three in Africa, which also largely avoided the disease.
The highest death rate, by far, is in Peru, with 6,299 deaths per million population, followed distantly by Bulgaria with 5,432, which is followed, also distantly, by Bosnia with 4,872. A lot of countries were clustered behind Bosnia. Iran’s death rate is 1,642, barely half the death rate in the 17th ranked United States, with a rate of 3,094.
When the daily death toll hit zero, President Raisi issued a statement, saying, “This great achievement has been reached while our country is faced with many oppressive sanctions by some powers claiming to be advocates of human rights but who even impeded the import of vital medicines.” He did not mention that no American vaccines are available in Iran because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi forbade their import, asserting they might be poisoned by the Americans.
Raisi went on to say that the low numbers of deaths “does not mean the end of the disease, but serious efforts should be made to fully comply with health protocols and to complete the vaccination process.”