In less than two weeks the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Iran has jumped from two to more than 2,300, shaking public trust in the Iranian regime’s capacity to contain the disease and exacerbating the country’s economic isolation. After claiming the outbreak was under control a week ago, the number of officially reported cases has doubled almost daily and at least 77 people have now died, according to the latest official figures.
In a sign that a belated government response may be kicking into gear, Iran’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, has said its hospitals will now be dedicated to admitting coronavirus patients and that they are ready to set up makeshift facilities with a further 8,000 beds. But medical professionals fear this is too little too late and that the delayed response has already enabled the virus to spread unchecked.
“Officials did not confirm the virus had reached Iran for one month, and then underestimated the impacts of the disease by telling people it is like a flu,” said a doctor in Khuzestan province, who has been treating coronavirus patients and expects to see a massive increase in deaths in the province later this week. “The more the officials are scared of scaring people, the more the virus will spread and the country will be further paralysed,” the doctor said.
The first cases of the virus were confirmed in the holy city of Qom, home to 1.2m people, on 19 February but more than two weeks later the Islamic regime is still refusing to quarantine the town. Rather than avoid Qom, many religious people have continued to travel there. Some have shared videos online of pilgrims licking the gold-plated lattice windows that surround Qom’s holy tomb in the belief that the sacred site will cure infections rather than pass on the virus.
In an unprecedented intervention Iran’s supreme leader last week sought to curb such behaviour, signalling that Friday prayers in Iran’s major cities could be cancelled for the first time since the revolution in 1979.