- Movahedi, a member of the regime’s Expediency Council: Khamenei’s ban on buying vaccines from the United States and Britain is 100% scientific! It is not uncommon for Americans to send fake vaccines to extort money from us and kill people or make them sicker. (Asr-e Iran daily, January 18, 2021)
- The Chief commander of the repressive State Security Force (SSF): You saw what the foreign media did with respect to Khamenei’s position on the vaccine. Unfortunately, several of their internal allies also promoted that message that we need to think of the people’s illnesses and eradicate them. (Iran Press news agency, January 18, 2021)
- Alireza Zali, head of the National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce (NCCT): In the past three weeks we have seen a relative decrease in physical distancing, which had increased the death toll and flared up COVID-19 infections. (ISNA news agency, January 18, 2021)
- Presidents of Mazandaran and Babol Universities of Medical Sciences: 266 COVID-19 patients were admitted in the past 24 hours. In total, 1,335 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized, 242 of whom are connected to the respiratory system. (Javan media outlet, January 17, 2021)
- Adviser to the Health Minister: The COVID-19 has not been controlled yet. It has only been managed to the extent that we have been able to keep a proportion between the number of patients and the hospital capacity (IRNA news agency, January 18, 2021)
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) announced on January 18, 2021, that the Coronavirus fatalities in 478 cities had exceeded 203,400. The number of victims in Tehran is 49,526, Khorasan Razavi 13,790, Isfahan 12,805, Khuzestan 10,170, Mazandaran 8,047, East Azerbaijan 7,783, Fars 6,177, Alborz 5,258, Golestan 5,110, Kerman 4,490, Kermanshah 4,224, Semnan 3,020, North Khorasan 3,128, Qazvin 2,147, South Khorasan 1,926, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari 1,625, and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad 1,499.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
January 18, 2021
