Tehran City Council Member: Approximately 100 COVID-19 Victims Buried Daily in Tehran

A member of Tehran’s City Council announced that between 70 to over 100 patients who died from coronavirus are buried daily in the city.

Nahid Khodakarmи said in an interview with Shargh newspaper on Wednesday, April 17: “On a daily basis, in the best circumstances 70 people and in the worst circumstances slightly over 100 people in Tehran die from COVID-19 infection”.

Regarding the discrepancy between the Health Ministry’s statistics and data available to Tehran’s City Council, he said that test results for some of the deceased become clear after burial, and also the cause of death for some of these individuals is recorded as “respiratory distress.”

Based on the estimates announced by this city council member, it can be determined that between 4,000 to 5,600 people suspected of having coronavirus have died in Tehran since last March.

However, according to the Health Ministry’s statistics, 4,777 people infected with coronavirus have died across the entire country.

Kianoosh Jahanpour, spokesperson for the Health Ministry, also stated that in the past two days, one-third of the country’s total death toll was related to Tehran.

Mojtaba Yazdani, Deputy for Urban Services at Tehran Municipality, reported on April 14 that a new section has been prepared for COVID-19 victims at Behesht Zahra cemetery, and so far 10,000 new graves have been prepared in this section.

Previously, Mohammad Javad Haghshenas, a member of Tehran’s City Council, had said that the Health Ministry’s statistics on coronavirus deaths do not match the data available to city council members.

This city council member emphasized that underreporting the number of deaths is misleading the people of Tehran.

He had requested that the municipality release the statistics it has regarding coronavirus deaths so that “at least if the government is not thinking about Tehran’s people, people can take care of themselves”.

The Iranian Parliament’s Research Center also announced on Tuesday in a report that, based on estimates, the actual death toll is approximately twice and the number of cases is between 8 to 10 times higher than the figures announced by the Health Ministry.

Based on this center’s estimates, the death toll from coronavirus is 8,609 people and the number of cases is between 600,000 to 750,000.

The Iranian Health Ministry had previously explained that its statistics are based on formal criteria and final test results, and does not include individuals who have or had clinical symptoms in its count.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Parliament’s Research Center stated in its report that the coronavirus test detection rate was approximately 67 percent, and in about 30 to 40 percent of people, “despite clear symptoms on lung scans, tests are reported as negative”.

Source: Radio Farda