Situation in Iran Not to Become Normal for Time Being: Official

Ali Rabiei on Monday called on citizens to take great care as long as the coronavirus pandemic is not over.

“Basically, we are not expecting the situation to get back to normal for the time being. We should keep observing [health tips and personal hygiene],” he said.

“At this juncture, we have to live while abiding by social distancing measures and health protocols. We should never forget that until the day comes when our health minister announces that we have managed to greatly contain the disease and bring the virus under control, we should continue to maintain conditions in our daily lives where our health is least affected,” he added.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the spokesman touched upon measures adopted to screen people for the coronavirus.

“I should announce that the number of people screened for the coronavirus has crossed the 72-million mark,” he said.

Rabiei noted the second phase of the screening program has also got underway.

“In the second phase, we are identifying people who have been in contact with infected individuals that may have been family members or have had some sort of contact with them, using technologies developed via collective efforts, especially those developed by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology,” he said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the spokesman said the country’s production capacity for hygienic items has considerably increased.
“When the coronavirus outbreak was announced on February 19, 2020, we were producing around 400,000 masks. Today, I would be glad to announce that our industrial production of masks has now surpassed 4 million a day, not to mention the masks produced at workshops,” he noted.

“As for the production of hygienic items and disinfectants, we can not only meet local demand, but we have reached a point where we can export our products as well,” he said.

“Today, our shops all across the nation offer all health supplies needed by people. Our knowledge-based companies have adopted very significant and very important measures in the domain of health, including the production of ventilators and COVID-19 diagnosis kits, which, after meeting local demand, can be exported, too,” he said.

He, however, underlined that the government’s priority is to meet local demand, first.

Rabiei also weighed in on the trend of both infections and death toll from the coronavirus.

“Based on the latest figures … we are seeing declining trends in the number of both infections and fatalities. Of course, the trend is sharply rising in some provinces, but on the whole, the trend of the death toll, infections and the disease becoming acute is decreasing slightly,” he said.