How many cases of coronavirus does a country have?
This is a low-care consultation in Iran, which has the worst coronavirus epidemic in the Middle East and possibly its most confusing response.
The country’s President, Hassan Rouhani, recently said 25 million Iranians have been infected with the disease since February.
That is more than a quarter of Iran’s population and more times the number of recently registered coronavirus instances in the United States, which are number one in the world.
The numbers are much higher than coronavirus infections in Iran, which exceeded 300,000, with around 17,400 deaths.
“This means that Array … the rest of the population, involving about 30.35 million people, will likely be exposed to COVID-19 in the coming months,” Rohani told the Iranian coronavirus control organization, presenting a report from the Ministry of Fitness’s study department.
“So we are dealing with a population of tens of millions and out of every 1,000 people who are infected, 100 or so may need to be hospitalised.
“Then we have to prepare for those circumstances.”
But after the president’s comments, the Department of Health goes back in the numbers.
They issued a saying that the figures were speculative, had been provided by a junior staff member, and that Mr. Rohani had meant “exposed” rather than “infected.”
Yet even with that somewhat confusing clarification, big questions remain over Iran’s coronavirus numbers.
The truth is no-one is really sure of what the true number of infections could be.
Since the first signs of the coronavirus appeared in Iran, some have cast doubts over the official numbers.
Only this week, a BBC Persian service investigation suggested that the number of deaths from the coronavirus in Iran is nearly triple what Iran’s Government claims.
He reported that the government’s own records appear to show that only about 42,000 more people died from COVID-19 symptoms as of July 20, to 14,405 reported by its Ministry of Health.
The investigation also found the number of people known to be infected is also almost double official figures at 451,024 as opposed to 278,827.
Although, it acknowledged that a level of undercounting, largely due to testing capacity, is seen across the world.
The Iranian fitness government denied the report, there was no cover-up.
On the same day, state television reported that one user died of COVID-19 every seven minutes in Iran.
This is further reflected, as the figures reported by the Ministry of Health should be, spokesman Sima Sadat Lari said on state television on Monday (local time) saying there have been 215 deaths in the last 24 hours.
With regard to the study paper cited by Mr. Rohani, the World Health Organization had noticed this and stated that knowledge of control was consistent throughout Iran.
The organization has stated in the past that it has no position on the use of serological controls, which are a digital puncture examination that analyzes serum or plasma to detect the presence of antibodies generated to combat COVID-19.
“There are more and more sero-prevalence studies of COVID-19 antibodies conducted in Iran, in other populations, with other control kits and variable quality plans,” Christoph Hamelmann, the Iranian who who representative, told ABC.
“Everyone should be treated with caution at this time until a detailed review and evaluation is completed, adding the verification kits used.”
But WHO considers the government pessimistic about the direction of the epidemic in Iran.
“For weeks, we have noticed an increasing number of hospitalizations, intensive care patients and reported deaths,” Dr. Hamelmann said.
However, Iranian leaders have absolutely reversed their technique to the virus, having first denied and then minimized the epidemic.
The delay in responding in the early days of the pandemic led to a first serious wave of COVID-19 cases, but Iran’s wave of moments was even worse.
The government, grappling with U.S. sanctions and a “maximum pressure” crusade through the Trump administration, has no cash and few features to restrict the virus.
So far, Iranians have been told not to hold weddings and funerals; are not forbidden.
But the government fears more infections as others have just celebrated the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha and are preparing for the holy month of Muharram.
While some have to cancel the festivities amid the escalation of the COVID-19 situation, domestic politics has also come into play.
Rohani, noted as politically moderate, faces a significant complaint from the so-called extremists of Iran, conservatives who favor a confrontational technique in the United States.
“You’ll have to appease the extremists about the rituals of Muharram month,” Sina Azodi, a non-resident fellow of the Atlantic Council, told ABC.
“Then you have to come and say, ‘No, let’s do this, let’s organize the rituals, organize the demonstrations’ but at the same time your own Ministry of Health says ‘please stay home, don’t do that.’ come out.’
“There are so many fronts you have to face.”
It means Mr Rouhani, whose term ends next year, could be using inflated estimates of the virus spread to scare Iranians into social distancing and avoiding mass gatherings.
The coronavirus pandemic also hit Iran as the Government faced a series of crises, from mass demonstrations to the shooting down of a Ukrainian airlines flight near Tehran filled with Iranian students.
Lately, mysterious explosions and fires have fuelled speculation Israel or the US are attacking sensitive sites within Iran.
Mr Azodi said those crises hit a government that had already lost people’s confidence.
“If the government says something, because of the lack of acceptance as true in government, other people tend not to pay attention to the guidelines, even when the government is right and has a proper approach,” he said.
“This is a primary in the country.”
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