Now Is Golden Time to Complete Covid Vaccination

Low Covid-19 transmission rates across the country is a “golden opportunity” to complete vaccination especially among children between the ages of five and 11, Hamid Reza Jamaati, secretary of the national science committee against the coronavirus, said on Sunday.
“Considering the circumstances, we could face another wave of Covid-19 with new variants,” Jamaati was quoted as saying by ISNA. 
Health experts recommend avoiding inoculation until one month after a patient tests positive for the virus, making the current break from the contagion a perfect opportunity for the rest of the population to get vaccinated. 
The Health Ministry is currently encouraging the general public to get a third booster shot and the elderly to receive a fourth dose against the coronavirus. 
So far, some 64.5 million have been administered a first dose, 57.9 million have received both shots and 27.6 million have gotten three shots. 
Jamaati pointed out, “Right now, the majority of hospitalized Covid patients are those with compromised immune systems, the elderly and the unvaccinated.”
Over the past few weeks, Iran has been registering under 10 daily deaths as the pandemic is contained but Jamaati noted that this is not the end of the outbreak. 
“Mortalities have seen an uptick in some countries like Australia, New Zealand and the United States,” he cautioned, stating that the virus could still circulate in African nations with low vaccination coverage rates. 

Too Soon to End

Despite the decline in infections and fatalities, it is too soon to celebrate the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, Hamid Souri, an epidemiologist, told ISNA.
“Roughly 50 countries across the world are seeing rises in infections, mostly in Central and South America,” he said, adding that some regional nations such as Pakistan and Bahrain were also logging increases in cases and hospitalizations. 
He said that the coronavirus was strategically trying to survive. 
“Its behavior and the changes in the intensity of the disease could be the virus’s way to impose itself on human society once again,” Souri said. 
The official stressed that it was critical to continue to screen the public and monitor the virus and deplored the drop in daily tests. 
He was especially concerned over new sub variants of the virus that were spreading in the United States.
Iran registered two deaths and 192 new cases Monday. No city in the country was on red alert, data collected by the Health Ministry showed.