Iran Has Far More Coronavirus Cases Than It Is Letting On

[htuttle]

Source: The Atlantic

The surprising number of Iranian government officials succumbing to COVID-19 offers a hint that the disease is far more widespread than the official statistics indicate.

<snip>
As of yesterday, according to Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, Iran has reported 6,566 COVID-19 cases, or about one in every 12,000 people in its population. The first case appeared on February 19. Right now Iran is third behind China (80,695) and South Korea (7,314), and just ahead of Italy (5,883). But the official Iranian number is almost certainly an undercount, probably due to the Iranian government’s attempt to hide a desperate situation for which it is partially responsible. When the final history of the coronavirus epidemic of 2020 is written, it may go something like this: The disease started in China, but it became finally and irrevocably uncontained in Iran. Knowing that the Iranian number is much higher than currently disclosed tells the rest of the world that the epidemic is even further along than official statistics indicate.

<snip - lots of math>

On March 8, health authorities in Golestan province declared that hospitals there were full. Golestan has about 2.2 percent of Iran’s population, and if we assume it has the same percentage of its hospital beds, the province should have 2,600 hospital beds. Let’s assume that at least some people with other conditions are already in those beds and that roughly 2,000 beds are now filled with COVID-19 patients. About 15 percent of COVID-19 patients need a hospital stay. That suggests that 13,000 people—or about 0.8 percent of the province’s population—have COVID-19 in Golestan. If that rate applies countrywide, it yields 610,000 infections, which suggests a cumulative total of about 1 million infections—if we include those who have already recovered. Finally, because hospitalizations are a lagging indicator, double that number to account for growth in the past week: 2 million.

<snip>
The situation the doctors describe is desperate, with nurses wrapping themselves in tablecloths because they have long since run through their supply of proper gear. They swear that the official numbers are wrong. “Just stay overnight in the hospital to find out what I'm talking about,” one wrote. Or if you want to live, go home, and don’t come out until the plague passes. “[Our] society now needs fear more than hope.”


Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/irans-coronavirus-problem-lot-worse-it-seems/607663/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

[defacto7]

1. I do believe it.

[Demonaut]

2. we are no different

[DENVERPOPS]

4. We are just weeks or a month

behind them............

We are at the point of no return, and The Republican Politicians are just now beginning to cocoon in their homes, hiding out.....

[totodeinhere]

3. Sounds familiar. The Trump Administration seems to be hiding the real scope of this

epidemic in this country as well.

[DENVERPOPS]

5. Of course he is

The economy is crashing, and soon will be driven into an un-stoppable nose dive, and his personal, pseudo financial empire is about to come crumbling down in front of the world's eyes..........total humiliation

As far as thinking of anyone else except himself......bugger off........

[totodeinhere]

6. This could take both Trump and the Iranians down together. n/t

[Talitha]

13. But... but I heard Kellyanne say it was contained.

[machoneman]

7. So-Do-We!

[gab13by13]

8. So-Does-China.

[AllyCat]

9. Oh, you mean like in the US?

Maybe authoritarian regimes are not good for governments and human health?

[dalton99a]

10. They really fucked up.

The first sign of dishonesty came on February 28, when Masoumeh Ebtekar, one of the country’s vice presidents, announced that she had the virus. Ebtekar is one of the most famous politicians in the country, well known even in the West for her role as a particularly sadistic member of the group that held U.S. diplomats hostage in 1979 in Tehran. Of course, being a notorious sociopath confers no immunity against COVID-19. But here is where the rotting apples come in.

If COVID-19 is so rare—fewer than 400 cases had been reported in Iran by the day she announced her diagnosis—what are the chances that one of the afflicted would be a famous politician? Soon we learned of three other senior officials who not only contracted the virus but were killed by it: Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a member of a senior advisory council to Iran's supreme leader, and Hossein Sheikholeslam and Hadi Khosrowshahi, both former high-level diplomats. Mohammad Sadr, another member of the council, announced his infection last week, as did Ebtekar’s fellow cabinet member Reza Rahmani. Recently, the speaker of parliament said 23 of his fellow members of parliament had tested positive. Two of them, Mohammad Ali Ramezani (February 29) and Fatemeh Rehber (March 7), have died.

That’s a lot of tainted apples, statistically speaking. Why would Iran lie? On February 21, Iran conducted the latest in a series of sham elections in which only government-selected candidates could run for office. To show disapproval, many Iranians refuse to vote, and as participation has dropped, the appearance of electoral legitimacy has dropped as well. Iran’s government told its people that the United States had hyped COVID-19 to suppress turnout, and Tehran vowed to punish anyone spreading rumors about a serious epidemic. Forty-three percent of Iranians voted, unaware that the outbreak had already begun. Quick action could have allowed quarantines to be put in place. Instead Iran greased its own path toward the most catastrophic outbreak in modern history.

[Warpy]

11. South Korea is the onl;y country doing a really good job

with large scale testing identifying the sub clinical case (infected people who aren't ill), which means their death rate of about 1% is probably as close to the truth as we're going to get.

It's still 10 times higher than this year's variety of flu, so it's a serious bug/

I sincerely doubt they're doing the large scale testing that is required in Iran. I know we're not doing it here. And iut looks like Indonesia is sticking to the story that Allah is protecting them. Here in the US, Dumbass still thinks he can lie and ignore it all away.

[Denis Enko]

12. In other words...

Just like us. They even have a fanatical leader to complete the comparison!