Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, March 7, 2020—After weeks of covering up and playing down the coronavirus outbreak, the Iranian regime is now scrambling to contain a situation that has already spun out of control. On Friday, the sources of Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) reported that the number of people who had lost their lives to the COVID-19 epidemic had exceeded 1,800. Iranian officials are still very low figures while trying to figure out how to sort things out.
“The outbreak of the coronavirus has made the situation in Mashhad critical. The Mashhad’s mayor called on all citizens to not come out of their homes and announced urgent situation”, reported the state-run daily Hamshahri wrote on March 3, 2020
According to Aftab, another state-run news website, the governor of Khorasan Razavi province said: “In the past few days the outbreak of this virus has accelerated in Mashhad. For this reason we ask people, if possible to stay home.”
The deputy Minister of Health also said: “The Health Minister said in a letter to the Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli that the provinces of Gilan, Qom and Tehran are at top of struggling with the coronavirus and the number of affected in these provinces are high,” Aftab reported on March 4, 2020.
Also, the regime’s Health Minister Saeed Namaki said on Thursday March 5 that “they will strictly control traffic.”
“At the entrance and exit of cities if we detect suspicious or infected passengers we will quarantine them and keep them for 14 days,” Namaki said.
“We will start with three epicenters such as Qom, Isfahan and Gilan,” He added.
There is clear and undeniable evidence that the regime knew of the virus weeks before it officially announced it on February 19. The regime refrained from giving information to the people for fear of a low voter turnout in the February 21 parliamentary elections as well as low participation in pro-regime rallies held on February 11, the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution.
Even after acknowledging coronavirus cases, regime officials continued to downplay the situation and figure. The authorities Mashhad and Qom had refused to shut down the holy Shiite shrines that attract millions of pilgrims every year. The measure could have prevented the spread of the virus. Ironically, the caretaker of the Hazrat Masumeh shrine in Qom had even insisted on keeping it open, calling it a “house of healing.”
Iranian authorities are strictly controlling information about the coronavirus and heavily punish anyone who sends news and reports about the number of patients and deaths to the opposition or foreign media. In the past days there have been several reports of people arrested or fired from their jobs for contacting the media or posting pictures and videos of the coronavirus outbreak on social media.
As the coronavirus crisis expands to disastrous proportions, the regime’s measures to contain the situation can only be described as “too little, too late.”
