A BBC investigation has revealed that the number of COVID-19 deaths in Iran is nearly 3 times the official figures. Iran had noticed nearly 42,000 deaths as of July 20, according to anonymous source, however, knowledge of the ministry of fitness puts the death toll at 14,405. It reported a total of 17,405 as of August 3.
The preference to “be kind to the truth” and interrupt the “political games” motivated the whistleblower, they told the BBC.
The Iranian government has access to hospital admissions and demographic, medical and non-public data for COVID-19 patients. Details such as symptoms, length of hospital stay, and underlying situations are compiled into a government database. After examining what is likely to be the full set of data known to state authorities, provided through the source, the BBC said it could only verify several patients cured and deceased. The BBC report said the source may simply determine that Iranian leaders had intentionally misrepresented the data.
Iran denounced the report as unconstricte and unverifiable. “We acted transparently, and it was transparent to eyewitnesses to the disease compared to other countries in the region and even some evolved countries,” said fitness ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat-Lari, asking European countries to reveal their actual number of cases.
According to the report, the death curve in Iran is roughly the same as advised through official data, but with a much more explosive increase. The first coronavirus death occurred on or around January 22; Another 52 people died before the government first identified a death on February 19.
In mid-March, when land closure measures began around the world, the death toll was five times higher than reported through the authorities. Iran has one of the most affected countries outside China. A Radio Farda report estimates that more than 70,000 people were hospitalized by COVID-19 at the end of March.
Iran made efforts against the virus in the third week of March and began to ease restrictions in April, when it saw a new increase in cases and deaths.
While Tehran has noticed the number of deaths, the small town of Qom has a mortality rate of one in 1000. Qom satellite images received in March show newly excavated mass graves.
The BBC attributes Iran’s vast cover-up plans to the need for a barrier that opposes declining government support. Iranian parliamentary elections were held in late February following heavy US sanctions, the assassination of IRGC General Quassem Suleimani through Donald Trump, and the failed reaction to the accidental downing of a passenger plane through the Iranian military.
Former DEPUTY and head of the Ministry of Health, Dr Nouroldin Pirmoazzen, told the BBC that President Rohani’s administration “is anxious and fearful of the truth” about the coronavirus. “The government feared that the deficient and unemployed would take to the streets,” he said.
Although the government has reinstated some of COVID-19’s containment measures, fewer people are joining them. The new cases reported on average are now 2,000, in component due to the increased amount of testing and identity of asymptomatic individuals.
By mid-July, Rouhani said more than 25 million other people would likely have inflamed with the virus in a country with an estimated population of 84 million.
Analysts and hounds have long suspected that the death toll in Iran is much higher than reported. Last February, Iranian MP Gholamali Jafarzadeh Imenabadi said he had witnessed “horrible figures” from his hometown of Rascht. “I say this explicitly, the statistics presented so far are not true,” he said.
“The United States is deeply involved through reports that the Iranian regime would possibly have erased important important points about the epidemic in that country,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters this month.
A WHO representative visited a university in Hamedan on Monday and showed up to set up the import of more fitness devices to Iran, state news reported.
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