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If you listened closely this week,behind theterrifyingclamor of Covid-19 sweeping across the planet, you mightve heard the sound of war nearly breaking out again between the United States and Iran.

OnWednesday, thebirthday ofassassinatedIranian Gen. Qassim Suleimani, a barrage of rocketsslammed into the Camp Taji airbase north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The attack killed two Americans and a Briton, while wounding 14 others. A day later, U.S. forces in Iraq hit back, carrying outairstrikesagainst Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia that it blamed for the attack. It isa safe betthat the violence between the United States and Iran will not stop there. Already on Saturday morning, reports emerged of another attack at the same base that wounded three more U.S. service members.

Despite a terrifying pandemic that has overwhelmed entire cities in Iran and now looms over the United States, the crisis between the two countries that began when the Trump administration exited the 2015 Iran nuclear deal shows no sign of abating. The possibility of war in the midst of a global public health crisis is, to put it mildly, outrageous. Iraniansare believed to beamong the most numerous victims ofthe Covid-19pandemic. Their governments decision to risk a conflict at this moment is both mystifying and galling.

ButIrans grim determination to hit back against the United States regardless of its peoples suffering does illustrate an important point. Itputs paid toa majorTrump administration justification for the controversial assassination of Suleimani in a January drone: deterrence.

In the immediate aftermath of Suleimanis killing, Secretary of State Mike PompeotoldCBSs Face the Nation that the entire strategy has been one of deterrence, claiming that the drone strike against the general had sent a decisive message to the Iranian governmentthat would force it to refrain from future acts of aggression.

But if deterrence really was the strategy, its been a resounding failure. Even before this weeks deadly attacks, rockets have continued to periodically rain down on U.S. bases in Iraq, as well as the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Iran has indicated inpublic statementsthat it plans to take what it views as a full revenge for the killing of Quds Force chief Suleimani at a time of its choosing.The deadly attack on Camp Taji suggests that they are not bluffing.

There is historicalcontext to consider as well. Since the 1979 revolution that brought the current government to power, Iran has shown that it is willing to endure a tremendous amount of punishment to achieve its strategic goals.

During Irans war with Iraq in the 1980s, then-Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini continued to battle Saddam Hussein long after his attempted invasion of Iran had been repelled. Hundreds of thousands on both sides were killed over years of grueling World War I-style trench warfare, all in dogged pursuit ofKhomeinisgoal of forcing the Baathists from power and placing an Iran-friendly government in Baghdad. (The Iranians would have to wait until 2003, when the United States graciously accomplished this goal for them.)

Today, even amid a cataclysmic public health crisis that is said to have killed hundreds of Iranians, including several top political and military leaders, the Iranians show no signof relenting on what they view as their primary geopolitical interests. Their continued attacks on American targets in Iraq suggest that they are pushing forwardtoward their main strategic goal: ejecting American troops from Iraq.

In anarticleabout the recent violence, Afshon Ostovar, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and author of Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Irans Revolutionary Guards, wrote that the Iranian-backed militia attack on Camp Taji and the U.S. military response fits right into the aims of Kataib Hezbollah and Iran.The attacks by U.S. aircraft helpincreasepublic anger in Iraq against U.S. military activity there andlaythe groundwork for a broaderconfrontation thatmightforce the United States to leave for good.

Iran and its Iraqi allies have more Iraqi deaths and destruction to fuel their effort to expel U.S. forces from the country, Ostovar wrote. They also have cause to respond further, if they wish, in order bait the U.S. into additional aggressive acts on Iraqi soil. Yet, doing so would compel the U.S. to respond in kind, and the cycle of escalation would continue toward certain conflict.

Despite its overwhelming military advantages, that would be a conflict the United States would be poorly positioned to win. The U.S. public is already exhausted and disillusioned with years ofseemingly pointlessfightingin the Middle East. Most Americans arealso anxious over the impact of Covid-19 at home and unlikely to be thrilled with the idea of diverting more resources to fighting another war with no clear end goals.

Unlike Iran, where the government wields authoritarian and sometimes brutal power to quell public dissent, the U.S. is constrainedin its capacity to ignore the wishes of its own people.Thats why U.S. officialslike Pompeo have insistently portrayed Suleimanis killing as a way of tamping down violence in Iraq rather than escalating it. Its a disingenuous claim that is getting harder to defend.

The proxy war between theUnited States and Iranlooks certain to continue. It seems that noteven a global health crisiscan stop it.One thing is clear however: Ordinary Iranians, Iraqis, and Americans can ill-affordthis kind of violence right now.

Even before the devastation wrought by Covid-19, Iran was struggling to cope with the consequences of American sanctions. It is in even worse shape today. The United States under Donald Trump, meanwhile, seems ill-prepared for the social and economic upheaval that will accompany a major pandemic on U.S. soil.It doesnt seem like much to ask that U.S. and Iranian leaders postpone their score-settling until the pandemic threat that facesus allcan be brought under control. But eventhatmodest hopemay be out of reach.

See the original post here:
Amid Coronavirus Chaos, U.S. and Iran Edge Closer to War - The Intercept

The coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, has now swept through 126 countries, infected close to 170,000 people worldwide, and is responsible for more than 6,400 deaths as of March 15. China is leading the world in the number of confirmed cases and deaths. What many people find shocking is that Italy and Iran are the second- and third-hardest hit nations in this outbreak.

By any common-sense measure, both countries should have much lower numbers of confirmed cases and deaths because they are geographically far from the epicenter of the outbreak. The reason these two countries are suffering the most outside China is mainly due to their close ties with Beijing, primarily through the One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative.

OBOR is Beijings foreign policy play disguised as infrastructure investment. Heres how it works: China and country X agree to do an infrastructure project in country X. Country X has to borrow from a Chinese bank to finance the project. A contract is always awarded to Chinese companies, which then bring supplies and Chinese employees to country X to build the project. Clearly, the country that benefits most from this initiative is China.

The OBOR provides new markets and consistent demand for Chinas goods and services, creates employment opportunities for Chinese workers, and gives China access to strategically important locations and natural resources. Beijings real objective is to leverage its newly gained financial power to greatly expand its geopolitical influence as well as its economic and military footing from Asia to Europe and Africa.

While this initiative has worked out well for Chinas strategic interests, it hasnt done the same for participating countries. At least eight countries that signed on the OBOR initiative are so indebted to the Chinese that they had to hand over their strategic assets to China to offset their debt. Despite these worrisome precedents, leaders in both Italy and Iran eagerly signed up to OBOR in 2019, hoping the red capital from Communist China would rescue their nations from economic woes. Now they are paying a dear price for it.

Italys economy has beenstruggling for two decades.It has seen threerecessionsin 10 years. Its unemployment rate stood at10.3 percent, and its youth unemployment rate was 33 percent as of 2018. According toMarco Annunziata of Forbes, the living standards in Italy today are roughly the same as they were 20 years ago because very little growth has occurred.

Italys economic woes are caused by aging industries, ruinous regulations (especially its overly rigidlabor laws), an inefficient banking system, high levels of corruption, and constant political turmoil. From 1946 to 2016, Italy had 65 governments. No matter who was in charge, he lacked resolve to implement serious structural reform and deregulation to boost the economy.

Instead, every one of the 65 governments hoped they could spend their way out of an economic mess. Italys debt burden as a percentage of annual economic activity measured by GDP is at 132 percent as of 2018, the second highest in the EU, only slightly better than Greece.

The most recent political upheaval in Italy took place in May 2018. Weeks after an election, the anti-establishment groups and pro-EU lawmakers failed to produce a new coalition government. The final compromise resulted in a virtually unknown law professor, Giuseppe Conte, becoming the new prime minister.

Like his predecessors, Conte has been unwilling to implement any structural reform. Instead, he sought an easy way out. Almost exactly a year ago in March 2019, against warnings from the EU and the United States, Italy became the first and only G7 country to sign onto OBOR. As part of the deal, Italy opened an array of sectors to Chinese investment, from infrastructure to transportation, including letting Chinese state-owned companies hold a stake in four major Italian ports. The deal gave communist China a foothold in the heart of Europe, but Conte downplayed it as no big deal at all.

Lombardy and Tuscany are the two regions that saw the most Chinese investment. Nearly a year later, the first Wuhan coronavirus infection case in Italy was reported in the Lombardy region on Feb. 21. Today, Italy is experiencing the worst coronavirus outbreak outside China, and Lombardy is the hardest-hit region in the country. As of March 14, Italy reported 24,747 cases and 1,809 deaths. Now the entire country is in lockdown until at least April 3. Its economy is expected tocontract 7.5 percent in the first quarter, opposite what Conte had hoped.

Iran faces some of the worst economic and political challenges it has in decades. The Trump administration re-imposed economic sanctions in 2018, which has worsened an already crumbling economy. In 2019, Irans inflation rate was 40 percent. The regime had to introduce a ration to limit meat consumption last year. Its currency, the rial, has lost 70 percent of its value to U.S. dollars. The overall unemployment rate was 15 percent but between 40 and 50 percent among young people.

Fed up with economic hardship, Iranians took to the streets in late 2017 to 2018 and then again between 2019 and early 2020. Initially, they protested to voice economic grievances about government corruption, but the protests quickly shifted to demands for fundamental political reform. They rejected their governments policy of supporting terrorists in countries like Syria while ignoring economic hardship at home, and called both for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down and for death to the Revolutionary Guards, a powerful military force loyal to him.

The Iranian government responded to these protests with an iron fist. In 2019 alone, the Iranian governmentreportedlykilled more than 1,000 protesters, arrested thousands more, and shut down internet nationwide for six days to block news of the crackdown from being shared domestically and internationally.

Facing domestic economic and political challenges and international isolation, Iran has sought out China as an ally against the United States, relying on economic ties and military cooperation with Beijing to fend off U.S.-imposed sanctions. China has been keeping the Iranian regime afloat by purchasing Iranian oil, selling the Iranian regime weapons, and transferring nuclear technologies.

But 2019 was the year Iran officially signed up to OBOR. China sees Iran as a crucial player to this initiative because Iran is not only rich in oil but also lies in a direct path of an ambitious 2,000-mile railroad China wants to build, which will run from western China through Tehran and Turkey into Europe.

Today, Iranian health officials trace the countrys coronavirus outbreak to Qom, a city of a million people. According to the Wall Street Journal, China Railway Engineering Corp. is building a $2.7 billion high-speed rail line through Qom. Chinese technicians have been helping refurbish a nuclear-power plant nearby. Iranian medical professionals suspect either Chinese workers in Qom or an Iranian businessman who travelled to China from Qom caused the spread of the coronavirus in Qom.

But religious leaders and the Iranian government were slow to take action. Religious leaders in Qom refused to cancel Friday prayers until the end of February, which allowed infected pilgrims to quickly spread the virus to other parts of the nation. Although on Feb. 1 the Iranian government banned its airlines from flying to China, it made an exception for Mahan Air, an unofficial airline for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The WSJ reported that Mahan Air had carried out eight flights between Tehran and China between Feb. 1 and Feb. 9 to transfer Chinese and Iranian passengers to their respective home countries. This explains why so many high-level Iranian officials are infected by the coronavirus, including First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and more than 20 lawmakers. Mohammad Mirmohammadi, an adviser to Khamenei, was the most senior Iranian official who died of the coronavirus as of today.

Iran is now the third-worst hit country in the coronavirus pandemic, with close to 14,000 cases and 724 deaths. Given the secretive nature of the regime, many suspect the actual numbers of cases and deaths are much higher. Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, says, Coronavirus has exacted an even higher political toll on the regime, because it has exposed the countrys ruling clerical elite as incompetent and out-of-touch. He predicts the coronavirus may accomplish what years of actions by the West have failed to achieve: the collapse of Irans clerical authoritarian regime.

Italy and Iran have very different social, economic, and political systems. Yet both nations share something in common: Their leaders refused to implement economic and political reforms in their nations. Instead, they sought close ties with communist China in recent years, selling out their countries and their peoples interests, hoping Beijings red capital would rescue their failing economies. Now their economies are worsening and their people are suffering most in this outbreak all because of these leaders short-sighted and foolish decisions.

Read more:
Iran And Italy Are Paying A Hefty Price For Ties With Communist China - The Federalist

Claiming that a number of Indians in Iran are facing extreme difficulties, a group of pilgrims from Kashmir and Kargil has urged for immediate intervention from the government.

Nadeem Yaqoob Hussain Bhat of Kashmirs Budgam left with a team of 33 Shia pilgrims on January 31 to visit Iraq, Syria and Iran but is now stuck without food and money in Irans Qom. The team visited shrines of Imam Hussein, Bibi Zainab and Imam Ali in Iraq and Syria before reaching Qom as the city became the epicentre of the COVID-19 crisis in Iran prompting cancellation of Iranian flights to India.

COVID-19 | Interactive map of confirmed coronavirus cases in India

After 16 days, Mr. Bhat says he is on the verge of a mental breakdown. Iran is cracking down on the emergency and in Qom especially there are many hard measures but our biggest worry is that the longer we stay here the greater is the chance that we could all fall sick if left here any longer. We are scared and have no money. We are risking our own health and if we fall sick then there is no scope of getting treatment here as there is no space in Irans hospitals that are overrun with their own patients, said Mr. Bhat painting a dismal picture.

Mr. Bhat is a team leader of a large group of pilgrims who carry out frequent tours to Najaf, Karbala, Mashad, Qom and other holy places in West Asia. The number of pilgrims stuck in Qom from Kashmir, Ladakh and Kargil is around 850, according to him. Asghar Ali, a team leader of another group of pilgrims from Kargil, is among those who are trying to control the worsening situation.

We are unable to get food as restaurants have shut and hotels are asking us to get out but where do we go? We request the Indian government to urgently help us, said Asghar Ali speaking over phone.

Read: Virus toll in Iran climbs as lockdowns deepen across Middleast

The pilgrims said there are many among them who are elderly and require regular medication because of diabetes and other disorders but are not getting them as they carried stock to last till January 31 and Irans stressed medical field is unable to cope with any extra demand. The pilgrims have reached out to Kashmiri leader Imran Reza Ansari who has been mobilising resources to help the Indians in Qom. In view of the difficulties that the pilgrims are facing in Qom, Anjuman-E-Sahib Zaman of Kargil has appealed to the government of India to help them with the medicines that some of them require and evacuate them to India as soon as possible.

If the embassy of India extends its helping hand, the people on the ground can hire two locations where we can house the entire group of pilgrims and take necessary measures immediately to help anyone who could be sick, said Mr. Ansari who is the general secretary of the All Jammu and Kashmir Shia Association. Another pilgrim Rehan Sahib of Kashmir said as Iran tightens control, they are even finding it difficult to coordinate essential movement within the group as there is a total ban on meetings and small gatherings.

Watch | COVID-19: Dos and don'ts from the Health Ministry

India has allowed a limited number of commercial flights to evacuate nationals from Iran but the pilgrims allege that the government has been slow. Officials The Hindu spoke to said India has a declared position that it would not evacuate those who are found to be positive in the test being conducted by the Indian medical team and quarantine facility along with necessary care would be ensured by the embassy in Tehran.

But Mr. Asghar has alleged that they are not getting timely feedback from the Indian mission regarding their requirements. The Hindu reached out to the Indian embassy for a response on the allegations but the officials declined to comment. At a press conference here on Monday, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry, also declined to elaborate the plans to help the Indians saying the matter is being coordinated by the Ministry of External Affairs. Pilgrims are upset as they had valid tickets but missed the flights as they were cancelled.

We ran out of money and now we are pooling in resources. How can we ensure our treatment in a foreign land if we fall sick. In Kargil we are highly patriotic and we have fought as part of the Ladakh Scouts during the Kargil war but now our country has abandoned us, said Mr. Ali sobbing over phone. In view of the worsening crisis, Hamid Arabnejad, top officer of Mahan Air, has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposing to fly all Indians including the pilgrims of Qom without commercial considerations to India as a humanitarian initiative. The letter also argues that Indian carriers have been unwilling to fly to Iran because of the U.S. sanctions.

The pilgrims in Qom are one part of a large group of Indians stuck in Iran including around 5,000 nationals who live in Tehran and Bandar Abbas and the Mahan Airs offer of free passage is meant for the entire community as per the letter of Mr. Arabnejad. Mr. Ansari said 44 students are also stuck in Tehran which is in a state of lockdown and frequent curfew. They arrived in Tehran from Kish on Monday and we have sent them some money to take care of immediate needs. The need of the hour is generous official assistance from India.

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See the original post here:
COVID-19 | Save us, say Indians stuck in Irans epicentre Qom - The Hindu

As the death toll from the novel coronavirus and number of those infected with the disease in Iran on the rise, the government has officially confirmed 237 deaths and additional 7,161 infected with COVID-19 so far. However, members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq, who operate outside Iran, reported much higher numbers Saturday, claiming over 1,800 Iranian deaths from the virus, while tens of thousands have contracted it.

Already with the highest number of coronavirus cases in the Middle East, Iranian government officials have warned over the weekend that the number could spike to over 450,000, warning that many of the patients might die. Iran's worsening situation has isolated the country far beyond what the American sanctions against Tehran sought to achieve, as Iranian nationals are barred from entering Turkey and Gulf states, and are subject to harsh restrictions upon their entry to Iraq.

<< Israeli security officials dread having to handle a Gaza coronavirus outbreakCoronavirus quarantine reading list

Irans Revolutionary Guard, the police, and the Iranian military have imposed a closure on the holy city of Qom, where the first cases of the virus in the republic began in January before spreading to the rest of the country, and where many prominent Shiite seminaries operate. All Qom residents who seek to leave must pass through checkpoints set up at all city entrances and undergo a medical examination in a sealed, military vehicle before they are permitted to leave. Shortly after the rapid spread in Qom, hospitals in the city were overflowing with patients, causing a shortage of beds, according to Iranian reports.

Several days ago the Iranian regime announced that it would establish 14 mobile hospitals that could absorb some 2,000 coronavirus patients. The government, however, added that it has encountered difficulties in recruiting the necessary staff to man these hospitals.

The government also has to confront clerics who claim that the virus is biological terror controlled by Irans enemies, and that worshipers should pray at mosques for the eradication of the scourge which is intended to drive a wedge between the people of faith and God and isolate the country. Many religious people have begun posting videos of themselves licking and kissing mosque decorations as a cure and a preventive measure against the disease, while authorities are warning against large gatherings, and schools and universities have already been shuttered.

Iran is also the country in which the largest number of government officials and members of political elite have been stricken by the virus. At least 23 Iranian lawmakers have caught the disease, and two have died. The Islamic Republic's deputy health minister, a senior adviser to the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, and President Hassan Rohanis two advisers are among those who contracted the disease. In addition, Hossein Sheikholeslam, who served as former ambassador to Syria and advisor to Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, as well as adviser to Khamenei on Middle Eastern affairs, died from the disease over the weekend.

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The death of Sheikholeslam sparked particular interest as he was among those who planned and carried out the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover that led to the 444-day hostage crisis of American diplomats. At the time he was the familiar face of the student movement that seized the diplomatic compound and frequently appeared at press conferences to report on the condition of the 52 diplomats held in the embassy, conveying the students demands.

Alongside him was usually a young woman, Masuma Avtakar, who now serves as Rohanis deputy for womens and environmental affairs, but cannot come to her office because she is infected with coronavirus. Sheikholeslam, who before the revolution studied at the University of California Berkeley, stopped his studies to take part in the revolution and became the senior expert for successive Iranian governments on Middle Eastern affairs.

In the 1980s, together with four Iranian activists, including Freidon Wardi-njad, current head of Irans official news agency, Hossein Dehghan and Ahmed Wahidi, both former defense ministers, and Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, laid the groundwork for the establishment of Hezbollah. Sheikholeslam was then subsequently appointed Irans ambassador to Damascus, and from there oversaw Hezbollahs activities. When he concluded six years of service in Damascus he returned to Iran and among other posts was put in charge of Iranian policy toward Arab countries, alongside the Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a bombing in early January by a U.S. attack. One may assume that Sheikholeslams name was erased over the weekend from the most-wanted list of many intelligence services.

The sparse reports coming from the Iranian government and the unsubstantiated information on social media show that Iran is having difficulty dealing with the spread of the virus, which has become a threatening political issue. Ordinary citizens and experts have accused the regime not only of concealing information and a shortage of beds and medications, but also of a failure to prevent the spread of the virus in the first days after the contagion became known.

According to a key claim, the government could have limited the extent of the damage, isolated the city of Qom earlier, and warned people against the virus in time. But the government feared that such a warning would impact the number of voters going to the polls and thus would damage the governments image and political legitimacy, which relies on a high voter turnout. Another claim is directed against the decision to export more than a million face masks to China, which resulted in a shortage of masks locally, and now the lack of medicine is sparking controversy among ordinary citizens and doctors, who blame the shortage on the regimes policy toward sanctions.

In the face of the governments argument that the sanctions are the direct reason for the shortage, Iranian experts say that Irans policy of standing strong against sanctions is what could lead to a high number of deaths. It seems that the regime can now only thank the virus for preventing the masses from taking to the streets.

View original post here:
As Iran's coronavirus death toll rises, there's one thing its regime can be grateful for - Haaretz

The coronavirus outbreak in Iran is among the most severe in the world and by far the largest in the Middle East, with official figures saying some 500 people have died and more than 11,000 are infected.

But there are several indications the outbreak in the Islamic republic -- whose government is known for its opaqueness and censorship -- is far worse than authorities are admitting.

Since the start of the crisis, parliament members and local officials in some of the major epicenters of coronavirus in the country have said the real number of dead and those infected is being grossly understated by the clerical regime that rules Iran.

There are also numerous reports of hospital staffs being warned not to discuss the numbers of deaths and infections from coronavirus with the media.

Amid widespread public distrust of the government, the authorities have given daily updates on the number of coronavirus deaths and infections in Iran while reassuring the public they're acting swiftly to contain the crisis.

But many Iranians believe officials failed to take decisive measures from the beginning of the outbreak, which has claimed the lives of several state officials -- including an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- and infected many others, including two vice presidents, more than 20 parliament deputies, and former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, a top foreign-policy adviser to Khamenei.

Velayati, a pediatrician, is also president of Tehran's Masih Daneshvari Hospital, a leading center for the treatment of people infected with the coronavirus.

Major Underreporting?

Iran reported its first two deaths on February 19, indicating that the outbreak erupted days earlier and that the authorities failed to inform the public about it as it was trying to get voters to take part in the February 21 parliamentary elections.

Well-known Iranian public-health expert Kamiar Alaei, the co-founder and co-president of the New York-based Institute for International Health and Education, said the real number of coronavirus infections in Iran could be five times higher than official figures.

Alaei, who helped implement an HIV-prevention program in Iran before he was arrested with his brother and sentenced to prison on accusations of spying, said a mix of state secrecy as well as poor data collection were behind Iran's underreported figures.

"If you look at the numbers -- and a deputy health minister also said a few days ago -- most of the reported cases are those [who are] hospitalized while about 80 percent of those infected with coronavirus have light symptoms and only about 15 percent go to the hospital," Alaei told RFE/RL, citing a Chinese study. "Therefore, the figures that are being released only represent about 20 percent of the reality of the society."

According to such reasoning -- that the actual figures are some five times higher than the Health Ministry is reporting -- the March 13 official figure of 11,364 people infected would mean there could be some 56,000 coronavirus infections in Iran.

That would make it second in the world after China, which has registered 80,815 cases.

Disparity In Numbers

On March 8, a news site affiliated with Iran's state-controlled television quoted Mohammad Hossein Ghorbani, a Health Ministry official in Gilan Province, one of Iran's worst-hit regions, as saying that 200 people had died from coronavirus just in Gilan.

The same day, a Health Ministry spokesman said the countrywide death toll stood at 194.

Shortly after publishing Ghorbani's comments, which were widely quoted by other media, the Young Journalists Club issued a "correction" that said Ghorbani actually said 21 had died in Gilan from the coronavirus and that the 200 dead included people who had died from other illnesses, including heart and respiratory problems.

That incident follows accusations the government has covered up the extent of the disease's spread in the country amid reports that hospitals and health-care workers have been overwhelmed by the crisis.

On March 9, Kashan Governor Alireza Mortezai said in an interview that in just his city and Aran Bigdol -- both in Isfahan Province -- 88 people had died from the coronavirus and more than 1,000 people had been infected.

The same day, the Health Ministry reported only 601 infections in the entire province of Isfahan. It listed the death toll for the entire country as 237.

Earlier, on February 24, Qom lawmaker Ahmad Amirabadi-Farahani claimed that the death toll from the disease in the holy Shi'ite city he represents was about 50 people -- four times higher than the official number of dead from coronavirus for the entire country.

Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi, who a day later announced he had contracted the coronavirus, insisted the death toll in the country was only 12.

Ali Vaez, the director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group (ICG), said that while Iran's response was catching up with the standard results issued on the coronavirus by the World Health Organization (WHO), "[Iranian officials'] numbers are still unreliable at best, untrue at worst."

"The Islamic republic has institutionalized mendacity in ways that the people no longer trust the government, even if their lives depended on it," Vaez told RFE/RL, adding that "the culture of lies has cultivated widespread cynicism throughout society."

Failure To Quantify

Alaei said in that order to contain the outbreak, Iran needed to improve its data-collection ability and be transparent about the outbreak. "More people need to be tested," he said. "When only about one-fifth of the real cases are being reported, how can the situation be controlled as [many] of those infected don't even know it themselves."

"WHO said it has provided Iran with 100,000 test kits while Russia also announced it will give Iran 50,000 [test kits]," said Alaei, who added that Western countries should provide Iran -- which is facing crippling U.S. economic sanctions -- with more tests.

Prominent analyst Abbas Abdi, one of the Iranian students who stormed the U.S. Embassy in 1979, wrote in a piece published in the reformist Etemad daily this week that the Health Ministry did not want to admit that it doesn't have enough tests. "As a result, they are silent, and they satisfy themselves with releasing the official figures, which they know do not match reality," he said.

The coronavirus outbreak has exacerbated the country's economic woes, prompting a request to the International Monetary Fund for a $5 billion loan to help fight the virus.

On March 9, health officials reportedly issued a directive telling hospitals that all deaths with strong clinical signs of the coronavirus should be registered as definitive fatal cases of the disease. Since then the number of reported deaths has increased.

A tally by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, based on statements by local officials and local news reports, found that since the beginning of the outbreak in Iran until March 9, 927 people had died after contracting the coronavirus.

Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur, who gives daily updates to the media about the crisis, has denied accusations that Tehran has been hiding real figures.

Asked about the inconsistencies between official numbers and figures by local officials, Kianpur said his ministry did not have any reason to cover up the extent of the outbreak in the country, claiming that "misunderstandings" were among the reasons for the discrepancies in numbers.

"But of course we can't consider someone to be infected without testing [them] and having laboratory evidence," he said on March 10.

Link:
Phony Figures? Iran's Coronavirus Outbreak Believed To Be Far More Serious Than Reported - Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty