Over 40% of Target Population Get First Dose of Covid Vaccine

Iran has vaccinated more than 40% of its target population with at least one Covid shot in its campaign for mass vaccination against the deadly coronavirus. 
“Some 40% of Iranian citizens have received a first dose and roughly 18% have been given both shots,” Hamid Reza Khankeh, head of the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, was quoted as saying by IRNA.
“Vaccine rollout has sharply accelerated since August,” he said. Iran is importing large shipments of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine every week to curb the fifth wave of the pandemic driven by the Delta variant. 
The Health Ministry on Wednesday announced that it has given a whopping 1.348 million vaccine doses in one single day. 
So far, 26.1 million people have been administered a first dose and over 13 million have been fully vaccinated. Iran has given out a total of 39.1 million shots.
Daily vaccinations set a new record in the capital of Tehran on Wednesday with the province’s Governor-General Anoushirvan Mohseni Bandpey informing that 260,000 shots were given in the past 24 hours. 
Vaccine eligibility age has been lowered to 40 and in some vaccination hubs across the country anyone can get inoculated. 
The country is also immunizing university students in an attempt to switch back to in-person learning.
A senior official with the Health Ministry, Jafar Sadeq Tabrizi, said children between the ages of 6 to 18 will start to get vaccinated in two weeks. 
“Schools will reopen in late November after the arrival of Covid vaccines for children,” he pointed out. 
Schools and universities closed down back in February 2020 when the pandemic first started in Iran. 

Fifth Peak Passed

The Health Ministry on its Covid application, dubbed Mask, announced that all provinces throughout the country have passed the peak of the outbreak’s fifth wave. 
Head of Covid Operations in Tehran, Alireza Zali, confirmed the news and said that patients being discharged now outnumber those being hospitalized.
Iran has been trying to contain a fifth wave for the past two months, with overnight deaths rising to 700 and daily transmissions climbing to 50,000 at its peak. 
The ministry logged 19,700 new infections and 450 deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday, pushing the case tally to 5.360 million and the national toll to 115,600.