The Crisis of Cover-Up in the Coronavirus Crisis; 65 Million Iranians Have Either Contracted COVID-19 or Are at Risk of Infection

In continuation of cover-ups and the lack of transparent statistics on the spread of coronavirus in Iran, Hassan Rouhani, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, admitted that the number of people infected with this virus in Iran is approximately 25 million; while the spokesman of Iran’s Ministry of Health announced the number of people infected with coronavirus in Iran from five months ago until today as more than 271 thousand.

Hassan Rouhani on Saturday, 28 Tir in a session of the Corona Crisis Response Headquarters also announced the death toll as approximately 14 thousand people, slightly more than the official statistics, and stated that 30 to 35 million other people will be at risk of infection. Accordingly, assuming the accuracy of the statistics announced by the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 65 million Iranians have either contracted COVID-19 or are at risk of infection.

This announcement comes at a time when since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, both domestic and foreign experts have emphasized the cover-up and dissemination of false information by the officials of the Islamic Republic.

Iranian authorities from the beginning of Bahman month of last year, when news of deaths from coronavirus in the city of Qom was published, considering that events such as the February 11 rallies and parliamentary elections were imminent, denied this news until with widespread epidemics in this city on the last day of Bahman month, they were forced to make an official announcement.

During this period, the report of the Parliamentary Research Center and the opinion of experts from the World Health Organization indicated that the statistics officially released about coronavirus cases in Iran is one-fifth of the actual figures.

In the initial months of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, a number of hospitals and provincial health departments also reported the death toll much higher than the official statistics. Hospitals were instructed to declare the cause of death of some coronavirus patients as acute pneumonia.

U.S. authorities have also emphasized the cover-up by the Islamic Republic regarding the spread of coronavirus in Iran. Previously, Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, in a statement titled “Khamenei’s Lies About the Wuhan Virus Endanger the Lives of the People” expressed points about the lies and cover-ups of the Iranian regime in relation to the coronavirus.

Source: Voice of America