Coronavirus pummels Iran leadership as data show spread is far worse than reported
The coronavirus outbreak sweeping through Iran has delivered a jarring blow to the senior ranks of its government, infecting about two dozen members of parliament and at least 15 other current or former top figures, according to official reports.
Among those sickened have been a vice president, a deputy health minister, and an adviser to the head of the judiciary, and the virus has struck at the pinnacle of power, killing an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
With the outbreak in Iran representing one of the largest in the world, Kianoush Jahanpour, a spokesman for the health ministry, said Wednesday the virus has killed 92 people across the country with nearly 3,000 people known to have been infected.
But data obtained from a group of hospitals in Tehran strongly suggest that the epidemic has spread even more than the government has acknowledged.
About a dozen hospitals in the capital city have reported 80 deaths from the coronavirus during the six days ending Wednesday, according to records from the medical centers. And these hospitals represent only a small fraction of the total in Tehran.
The data set — including demographic details and status of the cases — shows a 17 percent surge in deaths between Tuesday and Wednesday.
The hospital information was collected and provided to The Washington Post by Britain-based Iranian activist Nariman Gharib, who has been critical of the government’s response to the epidemic and fears the government might be keeping details from the public.
Based on the figures from Tehran, Ashleigh Tuite, an infectious-disease epidemiologist, estimated that the current outbreak in Iran has reached up to 28,000 cases. “I suspect these numbers to keep going up,” said Tuite, who is based at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, after reviewing the data for The Post. [Continue reading…]