Speaking on Wednesday morning at the meeting of the Council of Ministers, President Hassan Rouhani said, "Today, our people are in relatively good conditions for meeting their needs, and we have no shortage of beds, doctors and nurses”.
Parts of President Hassan Rouhani’s speech is as follows:
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
At the outset, I would like to explain the important measures taken in the recent days and weeks for protecting people’s health.
Fighting this dangerous people and, at the same time, supplying people’s basic needs have been imperative and important for us.
The fact that in the recent days, we have been forced to close down a major part of the country’s economic activities, except for businesses that provide people with the basic needs and goods, like grocery stores or drugstores, was because people’s health is very important for us.
A major part of the government’s employees, around 2 million and 450 thousand people, are not at work, except for the health sector who are doing their best.
We have told a major part of governmental sectors that they should go to work in shifts, with 1/3 of them going to work.
This is all because we are forced to supply water, power, energy and foodstuff; we have to get the farmer’s products to the shops and all those who are working in production must be able to continue their activities to its maximum amount to provide for people’s needs.
So, let’s pay attention to the fact that we need a major part of people to stay at home and we need a minority to supply their basic needs.
This is happening very well. Today, our people are in relatively good conditions for meeting their needs.
We have to thank all drivers who are carrying the goods from ports, take the raw materials to factories and then take the products from factories to shops.
We have to thank the personnel of the rail and air transport sector who are supplying people’s basic needs.
The currency that is needed for medicine and people’s treatment and personal care products and we have to supply from other countries, will be supplied without any exception.
In the field of treatment and screening, good work has been done in the country and today, we can identify and find out who needs more care and who needs to stay at home, who needs to be hospitalised and who should be in intensive care unit.
Fortunately, we have no shortage of beds, doctors and nurses in the country and even in intensive care units in many cities and provinces, we have more room.
I must also thank the foreign ministry, and our dear people must know that our first instruction was that any country that wants to help, we will receive their help regarding coronavirus.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also started a good attempt for saying no to sanctions. Right now, there is this issue raised at the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution that under coronavirus conditions, all sanctions must be lifted, and they are active in this regard.
I talked with a non-permanent member country on the phone and he said that their initiative is ready and they are after presenting it to the UNSC.
There are efforts going on to unfreeze our frozen assets in different countries under these conditions, and good steps have been taken in this regard.
I want to tell our dear people that today, different sectors are trying to supply their medical and health needs.
The figures that the Governor General of Khorasan Razavi gave yesterday show that our railways are bringing 85 per cent less passengers to Mashhad and air travel has decreased 88 per cent, which means that people are cooperating.
Yesterday at the session of the National Task Force for Fighting Coronavirus, we discussed that more strict. We may be stricter towards trips and problems that they make for people.
Our people must know that these strict decisions are for protecting their lives and we know that these decisions will be hard for people, but we have no choice.
The reason is that people’s lives is very important for us. We managed the first wave of the disease and we might have another wave ahead of us in the coming days, which we must manage.
The success of any plan will require people’s cooperation. That means if you all cooperate and help the government, we can implement these plans more easily.
The last point I want to mention is regarding the rainfalls in some parts of the country, which were severe in some parts, causing floods. Here, I have to thank all those who rushed to help in these areas.
Hopefully, we can overcome these problems in a short time with God’s help.
Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
MNA/President.ir