Iranians see highest daily virus case, death counts in pandemic
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran, grappling with its most severe surge of the coronavirus to date, reported more new infections and deaths across the country on Sunday than any other single day since the pandemic began.
Health authorities logged over 39,600 new cases and 542 deaths from the virus. The fatality count shatters the previous record set during Iran’s deadliest coronavirus surge that gripped the country last November, signaling the current wave will likely only get worse. The new all-time highs push Iran’s total number of infections over 4.1 million and death toll over 94,000 — the highest in the Middle East.
The crush of new cases, fueled by the fast-spreading delta variant, have overwhelmed hospitals with patients too numerous to handle. The country has never seen so many COVID19 patients in critical condition, with 6,462 more severe cases reported Sunday.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, last week ordered officials to discuss the possibility of a total national shutdown. The government has been loath to enforce such a lockdown, fearing the damage it would do to an economy reeling from years of American sanctions.
Iran’s sputtering vaccination campaign hasn’t helped matters. Only 3.3% of the total population of some 80 million has been fully vaccinated, according to data compiled from government sources by the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford.
In the face of U.S. sanctions that complicate banking transactions and deep-rooted suspicion of the
West, Iran has vigorously promoted the local production of coronavirus vaccines, doling out the experimental COVIRAN Barekat vaccine to most healthcare workers. Iran’s government announced that its domestic vaccine provides 85% protection from the coronavirus, without disclosing data or details.
The country’s newly inaugurated hard-line president, Ebrahim Raisi, publicly received his first dose of the COVIRAN Barekat shot on Sunday. He urged public health officials to speed up vaccinations before winter weather sets in, state-run media reported.
Texas resort killings: Police have arrested a 23-year-old man in the killings of three women at a home in the Texas resort community of South Padre Island.
Officers were called to a “family disturbance” at a condominium in the island city around 10 p.m. Saturday and arrived to find the women shot dead, police said in a statement.
Police said the suspect fled the scene of the shooting but later turned himself in and was arrested in the neighboring community of Port Isabel. Police did not identify the man, who they said is being held on South Padre Island pending formal charges.
The dead women were 46, 47 and 65 years old and from the Houston area, police said.
Police did not provide the women’s names, did not immediately answer questions about a motive in the shootings or explain the relationships between the suspect and the women killed.
South Padre Island is a community on a barrier island of the same name, off the southern coast of Texas near the Mexican border.
Festival cancellation: With new COVID-19 cases surging in Louisiana, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival won’t be returning this year after all, organizers said Sunday.
The festival, traditionally held in the spring, had been scheduled to run Oct. 8-10 and Oct. 15-17 after being canceled last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But organizers cited “current exponential growth” of new COVID19 cases in the city and region, as well as an ongoing public health emergency, in announcing that the festival will not occur as planned.
They said next year’s dates are April 29-May 8.
Turkey bus crash: A passenger bus veered and tumbled off a highway in western Turkey, killing 15 people Sunday.
The governor’s office of Balikesir province said the bus overturned and emergency units found 11 people dead. Four others died in the hospital.
The governor’s office said 17 people injured in the crash were taken to five hospitals for treatment.
The bus belonging to travel company Efe Tur was traveling from Zonguldak in northern Turkey to Izmir in western Turkey when it went off the road, according to Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency.
Authorities said an investigation was ongoing.
Swiss rape outrage: Hundreds of people protested Sunday in front of a Swiss appeals court that had last month reduced the prison sentence of a rapist, arguing that the rape lasted only 11 minutes and that the victim had not been severely injured, local media reported.
The mainly female protesters in front of the Basel courthouse held up banners and shouted “11 minutes are 11 minutes too much!” They decried the court’s ruling which had lowered the 33-year-old defendant’s prison sentence from 4 years and three months to three years, the online news site 20minuten. ch reported.
In last month’s ruling, the judge also said the female rape victim had sent out “certain signals,” Swiss media reported. A spokeswoman for the court refused to further explain that statement by the judge.
The rape took place last year in February after a visit to a nightclub. The woman was raped by the 33-year-old and his 17-yearold companion, who is currently still being tried in a Swiss juvenile court. Neither the victim’s nor the accused men’s identities were revealed.
A lawyer for the victim said she was shocked by the appeal court’s verdict, which appeared to partially blame the victim for the rape.
The judge had announced the verdict in the courtroom last month but a written ruling will only be published in a few weeks, the court said.
Indonesian volcano: Indonesia’s most volatile volcano erupted Sunday on the densely populated island of Java, spewing smoke and ash high into the air and sending streams of lava and gasses down its slopes. No casualties were reported.
Mount Merapi unleashed clouds of hot ash, as well as a series of pyroclastic flows — a mixture of rock, debris, lava and gases, said Hanik Humaida, who heads the city of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center.
Ash from the eruption blanketed several villages and nearby towns, she said.
Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people. The 9,737-foot peak is near Yogyakarta, an ancient city of several hundred thousand people embedded in a large metro area.