Iranian authorities didn’t disclose extent of coronavirus cases due to concern about unsettling parliamentary elections, disrupting ties with China, sources told Reuters
A member of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps troops measures a temperature, following the outbreak of coronavirus disease at the entrance of Qom, Iran March 24, 2020. WANA via REUTERS
The fresh details about the warnings by doctors and why Iran’s establishment didn’t disclose early on the spread of coronavirus come in the wake of allegations by some Iranians, including former officials and medical professionals, that the government has low balled the death toll. This account, based on interviews with officials and doctors in Iran, also underscores how governments of all stripes, democratic and authoritarian, in rich nations and poor ones, have made similar miscalculations.
In response to questions from Reuters about whether the government was aware of the virus reaching Iran earlier than acknowledged, Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York, said: “The emergence of coronavirus and its rapid spread took every country, including the Western countries by surprise. Iran was no exception.”
“But at that time, we did not know that the virus had entered Iran,” the spokesman said on state television.Qom, among Iran’s most important cities, has close links to China and is home to many Chinese. Iran’s health minister has publicly said that the virus is believed to have arrived from China by a merchant from Qom, who died of the virus.
“Dozens of them died in a week,” the nurse said. “Our chief doctor informed senior officials at the health ministry. But we were told to give them medicine and release them,” said the nurse. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the nurse’s account and the chief doctor was unavailable for comment. A senior pulmonologist in Qom, who works at a hospital designated for the coronavirus, said large numbers of people with lung problems were coming to the hospital almost every day, well ahead of the government’s Feb. 19 announcement. “We did not know what it was. We thought it was influenza. But none of those medicines for influenza worked,” he said.
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