Salim's order to provincial forces: Do not allow people to move as much as possible

While the coronavirus outbreak in Iran is spiraling out of control and, according to officials, as hospitals fill up, patients are sleeping on the streets in some cities, Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, said on Thursday, August 11, "We must make a fresh start to confront the coronavirus."

He told the commanders of the provincial armies to "establish bases in the provinces and return to their homes and prevent people from moving as much as possible."

In early March 2019, when the coronavirus outbreak in Iran was officially announced, with the city of Qom declared the epicenter, many clerics and citizens of the city reacted strongly against the restrictions on movement.

Following the failure to implement quarantine in coronavirus hotspots in Iran, in March 2019, MP Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh reported that the bodies of coronavirus victims in Qom were "piling up," and at that time a video of the pile of bodies in the Qom latrines was also published on social media, but the deputy prosecutor of Qom announced that the "person who published" the video was arrested "in the very early hours."

Hossein Salami is now announcing his order to prevent the movement of people, while former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has always said: "We do not have neighborhood and city quarantines... and we should not let America impose a new virus on top of the coronavirus, [a virus] in the name of closing down social activities and extreme fear; this is the conspiracy that we see today and you see in foreign propaganda."

While in most countries around the world, following the outbreak of the coronavirus, cities have been quarantined and restrictions have been implemented by the government in a planned manner, the Iranian government has not imposed any serious restrictions in this regard so far, and government officials have only made some recommendations to citizens, and after a while, they have only complained about people's "ignorance" of these recommendations.

The commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday that he had concluded that "the coronavirus does not cause deaths on its own, but rather takes a dangerous path in its evolution. This virus increases its penetration rate over time and acts in a complex and mysterious manner. Everyone should understand that this virus cannot be left alone and expect the situation to improve."

The IRGC commander's statement about deaths due to coronavirus has no scientific basis.

However, Hossein Salami's words to prevent people from moving around come at a time when, despite warnings from health officials about holding the Muharram ceremony, the religious ceremony is set to continue this year, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, neither opposed holding the Muharram ceremony nor recommended a widespread closure in a video message on Wednesday.

A day later, Qasem Mashar Movahed, deputy head of medical care at the Neyshabur Faculty of Medical Sciences, announced the "critical situation of Corona" in the city and the "lack of strength left for medical staff." Referring to the first decade of Muharram and the holding of delegations, he said: "Unfortunately, despite the current critical conditions, the level of compliance with health protocols in some delegations is very low."

According to official statistics from the Iranian Ministry of Health in recent days, new records have been recorded in the country's coronavirus statistics, with the daily death toll reaching more than 500 and the number of new infections reaching more than 40,000 per day.

These statistics are being published daily, while the Medical System Organization had previously stated that the actual number of coronavirus cases in the country was three to four times the officially announced number.

Alireza Zali, head of Tehran's coronavirus response headquarters, also announced on Wednesday, August 10, that officials were "hiding" in providing the World Health Organization with the true number of coronavirus deaths in the country.

He also said, "They didn't allow us to buy the vaccine because they thought it was expensive."

Source: Radio Farda