Dramatic Decline in ‘Red’ Covid Cities

The Health Ministry’s weekly report showed a sharp drop in the number of cities color-coded as red, or extremely high-risk Covid zones, from last week’s 64 to only eight as the seventh wave of the pandemic subsided across the country. 
According to the weekly update, high-risk cities coded as orange also plummeted from last week’s 163 to 116, ISNA reported. 
The seventh wave of the outbreak, fueled by Omicron variant BA.5, had taken the tally of red cities to as high as 130 mid-summer, prompting the government to relaunch the vaccination campaign and encourage the public to receive booster shots to boost immunity in the country’s population. 
Daily new cases are also on a downward trend, from a peak of 11,000 infections registered in the seventh wave late July to the 532 registered on Saturday. 
The newly identified cases took the national tally to 7.53 million. 
The ministry also logged 30 overnight fatalities on Saturday, bringing the national toll to 143,947. 
At the peak of the seventh wave, mortalities had reached 90 per day. 
A senior member of Tehran Province’s Covid headquarters, Nader Tavakoli, said on Friday that transmission rates were going down across the province. 
“If this trend persists, the seventh wave of Covid will abate by late September,” Tavakoli stated. 
On vaccination rates, the health official pointed out that residents of the province over the age of 50 and those with pre-existing conditions had welcomed a second booster dose.
“Most people have been administered a fourth dose,” he added, noting that circumstances were not “normal” yet and advised the public to follow safety measures.
Over the past 24 hours, nearly 38,000 more vaccine shots were given out, taking the total number of doses received to 154.27 million.