Iran has possibly passed the peak of the seventh wave of the pandemic and coronavirus cases seem to be on the decline, a member of the national science committee against the contagion, Mohammad Vajagani, said on Monday.
“Based on patient visits and the drop in infections, fatalities and cities coded as red, it seems we have passed the peak of the seventh wave,” he was quoted as saying by ISNA.
The Health Ministry last weekend announced that the number of cities color-coded as red, standing for extremely high-risk regions, declined from 130 to 78.
Vajagani cautioned against a return to normalcy and warned that the seventh wave was not over yet.
“Right now our only concern is the administration of booster shots, which people are not taking seriously,” the official said.
According to the Health Ministry’s guidelines, anyone over the age of 18 should get a booster dose if more than six months have passed since their last injection.
Only 30.3 million, out of a population of over 85 million, have chosen to receive a third or fourth booster shot.
Daily vaccination rates have dramatically dropped in the last few months, with the ministry reporting only 11,000 vaccinations in the past 24 hours.
Observance of health protocols are also on the decline, falling to 33% this week as many have decided to forgo wearing masks in public places.
Some 1,040 places of business were ordered shut by authorities in the past week for ignoring safety measures.
On Monday, 71 more Covid patients died from the disease and 7,300 new cases were identified, pushing the national toll to 143,015 and the tally of cases to 7.48 million.
The BA.5 variant began circulating throughout Iran in early summer, taking the number of daily cases to as high as 10,500 at one point.