Iran: Coronavirus Death Toll in 470 Cities Exceeds 187,500

• Chair of the regime parliament Health Committee: “There is currently no news about purchasing the COVID-19 vaccine. So far, we have not been able to provide the necessary foreign currency resources to purchase the vaccine and transfer this money abroad.” (KhabarFori website, December 18, 2020)
• Governor of Tehran: The Coronavirus condition in the Province is extremely unstable, and given the proximity of cities, the state of orange must be considered red. (ISNA news agency, December 18, 2020)
• Alireza Zali, head of the National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce (NCCT) in Tehran: Forty-six health workers died in Tehran and 200 in the provinces. Many became seriously ill and experienced severe complications. (IRNA news agency, December 18, 2020)
• Mashhad Medical System Organization: The situation in Mashhad is fragile; ICU wards are crowded. If people do not cooperate on Yalda night (longest night of the year), we will face a catastrophe. (ILNA news agency, December 18, 2020)
• Lorestan University of Medical Sciences: 4,500 nurses are working in Lorestan, and 1,450 nurses have been diagnosed with COVID-19 since the beginning of the outbreak. (IRNA, December 18, 2020)

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) announced on Friday, December 18, 2020, that the Coronavirus death toll in 470 cities had exceeded 187,500. The number of victims in Tehran is 46,066, Isfahan 11,025, Khuzestan 9,665, Qom 7,365, East Azerbaijan 7,317, Mazandaran 7,042, Fars 5,692, Alborz 4,950, Kerman 3,979, Central Province 3,918, Yazd 3,317, Semnan 2,819, Ilam 1,940, Qazvin 1,932, and Bushehr 1,889.

The lies and contradictory statements of the clerical regime leaders about the COVID-19 vaccine indicate that the corruption, plunder, confusion, and incompetence of this regime are delaying the supply of the vaccine taking more lives from the Iranian people.

On December 14, Rouhani announced, “vaccines will be procured, and vaccination will be done shortly, either thru purchasing or producing it domestically.” On December 16, Alireza Zali requested Rouhani: “In the shortest possible time, distribution of vaccine must be made available to people of all walks of life. Many countries have purchased the quantity of vaccine they need, so we must also provide adequate vaccine by safely importing it.”

Meanwhile, Hossein-Ali Shahriari, head of the regime’s parliament health commission, told Khabarfori news site today, “There is currently no news about purchasing the COVID-19 vaccine. So far, we have not been able to provide the necessary foreign currency resources to purchase the vaccine and transfer this money abroad.” This is a lie. According to Bloomberg, on December 10, 2020, GAVI (The Vaccine Alliance) affiliated with the World Health Organization has stated, “There was no ‘legal barrier’ to Iran procuring vaccines through COVAX as the U.S. Treasury’s Office on Foreign Assets Control had issued a license covering coronavirus vaccine procurement.”

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

December 18, 2020