According to Iranian state media, Iran is set to experience its sixth Covid-19 wave, with more dangerous variants of the virus set to overcome the country.
The state-run Hamdeli newspaper wrote in their September 25 publication that according to the Deputy Dean of Gilan Medical Sciences University, the Iranian vaccination program has barely reached 70% of the population so further outbreaks of the virus are likely to take hold.
With the start of the new academic year beginning recently in Iran, discussions of students being vaccinated have circled in the media as regime president Ebrahim Raisi visited a school in Shahr-e-Rey last Saturday.
The regime’s Health Ministry intends to vaccinate students with vaccines yet to be approved by the World Health Organization. One of these vaccines is the Chinese Sinopharm, which has not been approved by the WHO for children.
According to the state-run Arman daily, despite the Sinopharm vaccines not being approved to use for children, the Iranian regime has already made the decision to reopen schools and begin using the vaccine on students. They stated that the Pfizer vaccine, which has already been approved for use on children 12 years and older, is the better option and should be imported for use instead of Sinopharm.
Abbas Ali Shahriari, the chair of the regime’s parliament Health Commission claimed that it was up to the regime’s Health Ministry and the Food and Drug Administration to decide which vaccine should be used for students, rather than the World Health Organization.
According to regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s policy of “looking to the east,” and based on the treasonous 25-year agreement with China and economic deals with Beijing, the mullahs’ regime and its vaccine industry see it in their interests to import from the Chinese Sinopharm company and vaccinate most Iran’s deprived people, including children, with this unapproved vaccine.
In a report released by Iran’s Statistics and Information Technology Management Center, 2027 people who received their second vaccine dose have died because of complications caused by the coronavirus, and that the death toll of Iranian people who have been vaccinated is ‘ten times the global standard’.
Adopting such a policy that is against the Iranian people’s interests comes at a time when there are no restrictions on importing WHO-approved vaccines, such as Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca.
Regime officials have previously falsely claimed that vaccine imports were banned because of sanctions which are not true. Neither were they conditional to FATF approval. Using their lies, the regime has used this opportunity to quell further protests in Iran to prevent them from becoming major uprisings.
Instead of importing reputable vaccines that would have been more beneficial for the Iranian people, the regime has instead chosen to produce unapproved vaccines or import low-efficiency ones so that the officials and their affiliated institutions can profit from the suffering citizens of Iran.
Therefore we are witnessing nationwide protests by teachers who, instead of attending classes, have taken to their city streets and resorted to protesting the regime’s dangerous and destructive policies. These protests show the prospects for future uprisings.
