Facemasks Underscored Amid Ongoing Pandemic, Flue Surge

A senior official with the Health Ministry pointed to the decline in wearing facemasks across the country and urged the public to cover their faces to fight the spread of Covid-19 and influenza. 
“Our recommendation has always been to wear facemasks. Masks should still be worn in enclosed, crowded places and ventilation should be taken seriously,” head of the Health Ministry’s Center for Infectious Disease Control, Shahnam Arshi, was quoted as saying by ISNA. 
Influenza cases have been spiking throughout the nation over the past few weeks. 
According to Arshi, cases especially surged last week when nearly half of the samples taken from patients with cold symptoms tested positive for influenza. 
“We expected influenza patients to gradually increase from early November,” he said, “Contrary to our expectations, the upward trend began three to four weeks earlier, both in the northern hemisphere and in Iran.”
Arshi stated that one-third of influenza patients had been infected with the H1N1 swine flu virus and roughly two-thirds became ill with strains of H3N2.
Influenza is estimated to persist by February and vulnerable groups, including the elderly and pregnant women, have been encouraged to receive vaccination against the respiratory disease. 
“It’s not too late to get a flu shot,” Arshi noted, adding that the golden period to get the vaccine was late summer and early autumn. 
He nevertheless said that at-risk groups could be administered with the vaccine even in February. 
The health official stated that Covid and influenza safety measures were similar and involved wearing masks and avoiding crowds and enclosed spaces without proper ventilation. 

Relative Covid Calm

Asked about the coronavirus outbreak, Arshi responded that it was too early to claim that the pandemic was over but that the country was going through a period of “relative Covid calm.”
“We’ve passed the last Covid peak. Although there are still cases and hospitalizations, they are significantly lower than before,” Arshi said. 
Over the past ten days, 10 Iranians have been infected with the coronavirus and less than one person has died from it every hour. 
In the past 24 hours, 194 patients were diagnosed with Covid-19, bringing the tally of cases to 7.556 million. One more patient lost their life to the contagion, pushing the death toll to 144,544. 
The Health Ministry on the weekend updated cities placed on red alert due to high Covid transmission rates, color-coding four cities as red and raising the number of cities coded as orange by seven to 26. 
Arshi concluded that experts have warned of another peak of the coronavirus in late autumn in countries around the world but that it was too early to announce anything with certainty. 
High vaccination rates have increased immunity against Covid in Iran and throughout the world. Some 65.1 million Iranians have gotten the first dose of a Covid vaccine and 58.5 million have received both shots. 
In total, 154.9 million coronavirus vaccine shots have been given out to Iranians since the start of the vaccination campaign.