Even official numbers, which we all know are lies (refer you here) are staggering and getting worse by day. 1075 new cases confirmed and 75 died of Coronavirus since yesterday. This is a new record for deaths in 24 hours. Tehran is still at the top of the list for both infected and deaths, but Isfahan and Khorasan Razavi are catching up faster than you could imagine. While some thought the peak has come and gone, but we can still see the steep slope.
Total: 10075
Dead: 429
Healed: 3276
Iran International, a resourceful London based Persian news agency, reports 147 deaths in the past 24 hours, total of 1553 (more than 3 times official numbers). Tehran, Qom, Isfahan, Khorasan Razavi, Gilan and Mazandaran are the top provinces with most deaths. It also shows only Sistan&Baluchestan has 0 deaths till now, every other province has had people dying of COVID-19.
Ministry of Health Spokesman said, they do more than 6000 tests a day and are trying to increase it by a thousand soon. But, in a country with a population of more than 82 million, and estimate of roughly 1-2million infected, what is that going to do exactly? When people are asked to pay more than 1 MILLION Toman to get tested, when hospitals don’t have the kits to do the testing, when only officials and their families have access to tests, when all the kits sent by WHO are lost, when all the supplies arrived from other countries ended up in black market,…
Health Minister’s fully authorized representative in Gilan said, “They have convinced us not to quarantine Gilan. Traveling to Gilan has no souvenir but illness and death.” “They” refers to security officials, specifically intelligence community in Supreme National Security Council. “They” think, quarantining a city, especially Qom, would be perceived as a weakness of Islam and their boastful egos, so “they” rather sacrifice people for their political gains, while their families are safe in quarantines.
“They” are also pushing the idea that Coronavirus PANDEMIC is a biological weapon sent to Iran to weaken us. Some parliament representatives, some mullahs and IRGC officials are joining the rank of these conspiracy theorists, and as usual blaming others for their mistakes and mismanagement.
The hospitals continue struggling to cope with the amount of patients, the staff are working multiple consecutive shifts, with no proper gear or enough rest. More healthcare workers including doctors and nurses pass away every day due to lack of protection gears and contracting the disease because they were not informed of the outbreak in time. But as you can see in this video, Basij forces (a branch of IRGC) are on the streets wearing those gears:
Also, there are unconfirmed reports of Iran sending masks to Iraq, as many as 2 million, at no cost while Iranians are struggling to find even one in drugstores. And this one showing how IRGC is really disinfecting the cities:
Javad Zarif, Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister, posted this on Twitter, asking for help from international community, probably to protect their own and not the ordinary people. A couple of days ago, WHO was impressed with the level of care provided to patients, remember?
Deputy head of Tehran’s University of Medical Sciences said in an interview, “People dying is not our problem. Most of them are old who would have died of something else in the next week or month, if not from COVID-19. The problem is the load they impose on our hospitals (health system).” Although, after he faced a backlash on social media, he issued an apology blaming what he said on being tired and overworked. He said, we work hard for every single life.
His apology:
IRGC affiliated news agency, Fars, has published this on its website. A picture of many graves with this caption: “Death is not the end, but a beginning/Necessity of realism about after life”. If this is not an attempt to normalize death in people’s eyes, what is it then?
IRIB started lying something else. An IRGC propaganda, saying Iran has discovered a medicine defeating Coronavirus, name of the drug? “Hydroxychloroquine”! I’m sure if you google it, you can find much information about it, but according to IRIB, they found it first. It’s worth mentioning that an official at the Ministry of Health has declined knowing anything about it.
It looks like the Islamic Republic regime has found the misery of Iranian people as an opportunity to get some money in its pockets, the money that has dried up a bit because of the “maximum pressure” sanctions from US. IRGC controlling the aids and selling stuff in the black market, and today they announced they requested a 5 billion dollar loan from IMF. I wish the money would have been used to contain and manage the disease, but without a doubt, will be partially spent on terrorism, and the rest will be split among themselves!
We could write about mismanagement and corruption in this regime for days. This is just about what they’re doing with this crisis and how much they care about the citizens. It’s all about propaganda and bragging about how powerful and independent they are, while in fact the country is on the brink of collapse in all aspects. That’s why we are here, to uncover the truth!
Cover Photo: Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images