Iran: Coronavirus death toll exceeds 31,500 in 294 cities
Mrs. Rajavi: Regime health officials are mimicking European countries where the death toll has decreased. The engineered figures dictated by regime’s supreme leader will not deceive anyone
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) announced on Saturday, April 18, 2020, that the Coronavirus death toll has exceeded 31,500 in 294 cities across Iran. The number of victims in Tehran is 5,190, Khorasan Razavi 2,520, Mazandaran 2,040, Isfahan 2,210, Khuzestan 1,330, East Azerbaijan 1,120, Golestan 1,070, Kermanshah 875, West Azerbaijan 840, Lorestan 705, Semnan 510, and Qazvin 410.
According to medical sources in Neyshabur, the number of victims is at least 270. Hospitals and the city’s main cemetery are facing serious problems. In Shiraz, the number of victims is more than 550. The death toll in Bushehr is at least 290. In recent days, the death toll and the number of those infected with the virus have also increased in Bukan, Saqqez, and Piranshahr.
Yesterday, Abdolrasoul Hemmati, the deputy director of health in Shiraz Medical Sciences University, told the state official news agency IRNA, “With the surge in the number of people infected with the virus, Fars province is now ranked among the red areas. In addition to Shiraz, infected patients have been registered in other cities in the province, including Neyriz, Eghlid, Khorrambid, Estahban, Darab, Khafr, Farashband, Kharameh, Lamerd, Arsanjan, Larestan, Kazerun, Abadeh, Evaz, Khanj, Marvdasht, Sepidan, Ghirokarzin, Firuzabad, Jahrom “Bavanat, Zarghan, Beyza, and Sarchehan.
Yesterday, Gholamreza Shariati, Khuzestan’s Governor, told the state-run news agency Tasnim, “We have faced an eruption in the number of those infected with the Coronavirus in the city of Ramshir (southwest Iran), which has created serious problems in the city and the province.”
Ali Maher, a member of the National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce in Tehran, told the state-run daily, Iran, “The number of deaths and the patients in critical condition in Tehran has not dropped significantly… If the tight regulations do not continue, we will face an eruption of the disease, and our facilities will not allow admitting more patients. If we have a surge in the outbreak, we will certainly have a problem in organizing hospital beds … It might be that the situation in the country has improved in terms of the mortality curve. Still, in Tehran, the diagram related to the slope of recovery and mortality is very mild and cannot be said that the situation is any better.”
Despite the repeated warning by regime’s officials and experts, today, Rouhani ordered, the Health Ministry in cooperation with the security and social committee of the National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce (NCCT), to review the guidelines for the businesses categorized as ‘medium risk’ and provide it to NCCT.” Rouhani’s order simply means sending more people to their death by Coronavirus.
The state-controlled daily, Setareh Sobh, in its editorial on April 18, 2020, wrote, “Under the current circumstances, income tax has decreased because of the spread of Coronavirus. The price of oil has dropped to $20 per barrel, unprecedented in the past 18 years. As such, if institutions such as Astan-e Quds Razavi, the Headquarters To Execute Imam Khomeini’s Order, Mostazafan, and Fifteenth of Khordad Foundations, etc. do not provide their assets to the people, we can predict now that the economic growth and the living conditions for the people in 1399 (current Iranian year started March 21, 2020) will be worse than 1397 and 1398.”
Meanwhile, there is increasing concern over the eruption of popular uprisings. Today, in an article the state-run daily, Iran, Abbas Akhoundi, a former minister in Rouhani and Rafsanjani’s cabinets, titled “Under Society’s Skin,” expressed dismay towards widespread social protests like last November. He wrote, “of the sliding of the middle class into the lower classes contribute to widespread social anomalies… The increase in the number of the marginalized population and the bitter feeling of being marginalized lead to widespread discontent and the creation of a kind of social imbalance detrimental to the whole society… In addition to this, the “Coronavirus” phenomenon has emerged. Trade volume reduction, unemployment, and effective fall of income among more than 70 percent of the population are indeed threatening the social and economic tolerance of society. So, more than economic policy, we need a social policy to deal with Coronavirus.”
Commentating on the regime’s daily lowering of the fatalities, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: In recent days, the regime’s Health Ministry officials are clumsily mimicking the European countries, where the death toll has actually decreased, and are announcing figures dictated by the mullahs’ supreme leader Ali Khamenei. But one cannot deceive the public by engineering the figures, just as the Iranian people did not believe Hassan Rouhani’s claim that he had been unaware of the spread of Coronavirus to Iran until February 19, 2020.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
April 18, 2020
