35m Iranians Face Covid-19 Risk

Citing a report by the Health Ministry, President Hassan Rouhani said 30-35 million Iranians are susceptible to catch the novel coronavirus and nearly one-fifth of Iran’s population are believed to have already contracted the infectious disease.
In Saturday’s coronavirus taskforce meeting, Rouhani pointed to a recent report by the Health Ministry estimating that 25 million Iranians were infected with Covid-19 in the past 150 days, leaving another 35 million at risk of contracting the contagious illness, President.ir reported.
The president said, “Projections suggest hospitalizations will double in the coming months.” Nearly 200,000 were hospitalized in the roughly five months since the pandemic began to spread in Iran.
Pointing to the ministry’s speculations that Iran could continue to grapple with the infection over the next year, Rouhani stressed the need for investment in medical infrastructure.
Out of 2,166 freshly identified cases on Saturday, 1,293 were admitted to hospitals. The new infections take the country’s caseload to over 271,000.
Based on the ministry’s report, 500 in every 1,000 infected patients are asymptomatic, 350 display mild symptoms and 150 could require admission to hospital.
Rouhani inferred that millions could be hospitalized over the course of the pandemic. 
“We have not reached herd immunity. Therefore, we have no choice but to break the chain of transmission,” he said.
The top official advised the public to wear facemasks, observe social distancing rules and avoid gatherings to assist the country’s health system in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak.
Over the past 24 hours, 188 more died from the coronavirus, taking the nation’s death toll to 13,979. Some 3,530 are in critical condition in intensive care units and 235,000 have recovered.
Iran has administered 2.12 million coronavirus tests since the pandemic began. 

Temporary Immunity 

Following the president’s televised speech, Alireza Moezi, his deputy head of communications, posted on Twitter that the 25 million Iranians estimated to have caught the virus are temporality safe from the infectious disease.
Mostafa Qanei, a member of National Coronavirus Taskforce, spoke to ISNA to clarify the president’s comments, saying that the number of infections remains the official count reported daily by the Health Ministry.
“The 25 million, or roughly 20% of Iran’s population, are those with mild or no symptoms, having no reason to visit the doctor … So the figure does not represent the number of patients,” he said.
Qanei, who also heads the taskforce’s Science Committee, the official number of cases are made up of hospitalizations and those with severe symptoms have been administered coronavirus tests, or PCR.
Global Covid-19 cases reached 14.2 million on Saturday and fatalities surpassed 600,000. For the first time since the outbreak was identified, one million infections were added to the world’s tally in a span of five days.