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AFP BREAKING Iran deputy health minister tests positive for coronavirus: adviser
Link to tweet
Richard Engel ✔@RichardEngel
Ok.. a big step
AFP news agency ✔@AFP
Replying to @AFP @WHO
#BREAKING Iran deputy health minister tests positive for coronavirus: adviser
6:53 AM - Feb 25, 2020
Link to tweet
Richard Engel ✔@RichardEngel
Iran’s numbers don’t match rest of world. 100 cases or so. 15 deaths. Too many deaths. Too high a percentage. Could mean they are missing many cases, according to math elsewhere.
6:56 AM - Feb 25, 2020
Engel's last tweet is frightening to contemplate.
On edit: Here's Iran's Deputy Health Minister now addressing everyone *without a mask*.
Link to tweet
Ali Arouzi ✔@aliarouzi
And incredibly, he is not wearing a mask!
Abas Aslani @AbasAslani
Deputy Health Minister of #Iran Harirchi who is infected with #CoronaVirus had a joint presser along with spokesman of the government Rabiei yesterday among journalists. A footage published earlier had raised suspicion that he might had been infected with the virus.
Embedded video
7:00 AM - Feb 25, 2020
17 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
That the brutal theocracy is having a hard time figuring out how to deal with a health crisis.
every single day.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/world/middleeast/coronavirus-iran.html
‘Recipe for a Massive Viral Outbreak’: Iran Emerges as a Worldwide Threat
Long a regional crossroads, Iran is spreading the new coronavirus to a host of neighboring countries. Many are ill-equipped to cope.
By David D. Kirkpatrick, Farnaz Fassihi and Mujib Mashal
Feb. 24, 2020
Iranians outside a Tehran hospital. Experts warn that the coronavirus may be spreading from Iran throughout the Middle East. Wana News Agency, via Reuters
Religious pilgrims, migrant workers, businessmen, soldiers and clerics all flow constantly across Iran’s frontiers, often crossing into countries with few border controls, weak and ineffective governments and fragile health systems.
Now, as it struggles to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Iran is also emerging as the second focal point after China for the spread of the disease. Cases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates — even one in Canada — have all been traced to Iran, sending tremors of fear rippling out from Kabul to Beirut.
The Middle East is in many ways the perfect place to spawn a pandemic, experts say, with the constant circulation of both Muslim pilgrims and itinerant workers who might carry the virus. Iran’s economy has been strangled by sanctions, its people have lost trust in their government and its leaders are isolated from much of the world, providing little clarity about the extent of the epidemic.
Civil wars or years of unrest have shattered the health systems of several neighboring countries, like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. And most of the region is governed largely by authoritarians with poor track records at providing public transparency, accountability and health services.
“It is a recipe for a massive viral outbreak,” said Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the former founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on H.I.V./AIDS.
Millions of Muslim pilgrims travel each year from around the region to visit Shiite holy sites in Iran and Iraq. In January alone, 30,000 people returned to Afghanistan from Iran, and hundreds of others continue to make the pilgrimage to Qom, the site of the outbreak, every week, Afghan officials say.
Iraq closed its border with Iran on Saturday, but millions cross it every year. So scores of infected people could potentially have brought the virus to Iraq, depending on how long it has been present in Iran. And as of midday on Monday in Najaf, flights to and from Iran were still taking off and landing.
‘Recipe for a Massive Viral Outbreak’: Iran Emerges as a Worldwide Threat
Long a regional crossroads, Iran is spreading the new coronavirus to a host of neighboring countries. Many are ill-equipped to cope.
By David D. Kirkpatrick, Farnaz Fassihi and Mujib Mashal
Feb. 24, 2020
Iranians outside a Tehran hospital. Experts warn that the coronavirus may be spreading from Iran throughout the Middle East. Wana News Agency, via Reuters
Religious pilgrims, migrant workers, businessmen, soldiers and clerics all flow constantly across Iran’s frontiers, often crossing into countries with few border controls, weak and ineffective governments and fragile health systems.
Now, as it struggles to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Iran is also emerging as the second focal point after China for the spread of the disease. Cases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates — even one in Canada — have all been traced to Iran, sending tremors of fear rippling out from Kabul to Beirut.
The Middle East is in many ways the perfect place to spawn a pandemic, experts say, with the constant circulation of both Muslim pilgrims and itinerant workers who might carry the virus. Iran’s economy has been strangled by sanctions, its people have lost trust in their government and its leaders are isolated from much of the world, providing little clarity about the extent of the epidemic.
Civil wars or years of unrest have shattered the health systems of several neighboring countries, like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. And most of the region is governed largely by authoritarians with poor track records at providing public transparency, accountability and health services.
“It is a recipe for a massive viral outbreak,” said Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the former founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on H.I.V./AIDS.
Millions of Muslim pilgrims travel each year from around the region to visit Shiite holy sites in Iran and Iraq. In January alone, 30,000 people returned to Afghanistan from Iran, and hundreds of others continue to make the pilgrimage to Qom, the site of the outbreak, every week, Afghan officials say.
Iraq closed its border with Iran on Saturday, but millions cross it every year. So scores of infected people could potentially have brought the virus to Iraq, depending on how long it has been present in Iran. And as of midday on Monday in Najaf, flights to and from Iran were still taking off and landing.
