Page 12 - IRANRptDec21

2.7 Nearly everyone in Iran infected by coronavirus at some point concludes study
Nearly everyone in Iran has been infected by the coronavirus at some point during the COVID-19 pandemic, and some have caught the virus more than once, but the country still hasn’t achieved herd immunity, the New Scientist has reported.
Instead of herd immunity, said the trade publication, Iran was seeing a punishing new wave of deaths driven by the delta variant of the coronavirus. The country of 84mn has experienced around a month of relatively lower COVID-19 numbers, but the virus now appears back on the rise for a sixth wave. By October 20, daily infections were again running over the 10,000-threshold. The official coronavirus death toll, meanwhile, stands at 124,000, though officials have conceded the real number could be twice as high. During the peak of the fifth wave, daily deaths were well over 500.
Iran’s health minister, Bahram Eynollahi, said last month that Iran needs to reach a coronavirus vaccination rate of 80%. But his ministry’s figures showed only 35% of Iranians fully vaccinated with two vaccine jabs, with 75% of individuals recorded as “one shot”. The figures released appeared to be percentages of adults over a certain age, but the data was not clear. Vaccinations would stop rife hospitalisations but COVID-19 would not fully go away, the minister added.
2.8 Polls & Sociology
59% of Iranians tell Gallup their local economy is getting worse
Nearly six in 10 (59%) Iranians told a Gallup survey that their local economy was getting worse.
Gallup on November 12 released results of a survey conducted August 24-31, three weeks after the country's new president, hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, took office. Raisi inherited an economy battered by sanctions.
More than nine in 10 Iranians (91%) said it was a bad time to find a job where they live, unchanged from 2020. At no point in Gallup's trend recorded since 2007 have less than 66% of Iranians said it was a bad time to find a job in their local areas, though since 2018, when the former Trump administration reintroduced heavy US sanctions against Iran, pessimism has been even higher than in previous years, Gallup said.
Giving its “Bottom Line”, the polling company concluded: “The former Trump administration's reimposition of sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic both seriously affected Iran's economy, with the country's GDP contracting by an
12 IRAN Country Report December 2021 www.intellinews.com