Today, the Islamic Republic is among the most affected countries in the world by the emerging Corona virus, with official figures that raise the suspicion of some ... Is Iran lying about the death toll of Covid-19? Did the authorities hide information about the start of the epidemic?
According to Iranian official information on Sunday, Coved-19 caused 1,685 people out of 20,600 injuries. Health Ministry spokesman Kyanosh Jahanpur announced Thursday that there are fifty new infections every hour in exchange for "one death every ten minutes."
On social media, other sources give double digits, noting that among the most skeptical sources are opposition sources that do not have wide popular ground in Iran.
Commenting on the figures released by the government, the opposition in exile on Sunday spoke in a statement of 8,800 deaths, a figure that cannot be verified.
"In Iran, some university professors have much higher estimates than official figures, but we have to be very careful," said French expert on Iranian affairs, Thierry Coffel of the Institute for International and Strategic Relations.
But doubts do exist. Seth Jones, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says, "It seems clear that there is a (by Iranian officials) less seriousness of the crisis, at least in public."
He stresses that the control exercised by the authorities on government media does not lead to optimism. "What the government can do, even if it is honest in publishing these numbers, and I don't know if it is, is to hide the challenge that this crisis presents."
Tehran has been charged in other crises recently, as after the shooting down of the Ukrainian Boeing plane in January or after the controversial outcome of anti-government protests at the end of 2019. The French-Iranian specialist in social sciences Azadiyeh says, "It is a system that is based on covering up" the information.
"(Iranian officials) did not talk about the new Corona virus until things got very bad," she said, stressing that she was informed by Iranian medical sources that the death certificates of the first victims bore only the phrase "pulmonary failure."
And it seems that the authorities misjudged the launch of the health crisis in the holy city of Qom (center), which regularly attracts large numbers of visitors, where hundreds of Chinese students reside, and where the first death of an Iranian recorded Covid-19. The deceased was a merchant who returned from the Chinese city of Wuhan.
"I think we are a little late in announcing the monitoring of the virus," Deputy Health Minister Reza Malakzadeh told Iranian television. He acknowledged that the epidemic was likely to have spread in the country since January, while the authorities only recognized it on February 19.
The epidemic is widespread in Iran today. The national health system is no longer able to face the challenge, despite the presence of workers who are known for their high professionalism.
And the number of casualties will surely increase if Iran is able to carry out more medical examinations for those who have symptoms of the disease. The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that Iran "is doing all it can", but "needs a lot of equipment" in this field.