Isolated Iran tries to stem virus spread
Iran girded yesterday for a long battle against the coronavirus that is spreading rapidly across the country and the wider Middle East.
Iran’s state-run Irna news agency reported last night that there were 22 people dead amid 141 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in the Islamic Republic.
A graphic published by the agency shows that the virus has spread to 20 of Iran’s 31 provinces.
The hardest-hit among them remained the province home to the holy Shiite city of Qom, with 63 confirmed cases.
Experts fear Iran is underreporting the coronavirus spread as cases across the wider Persian Gulf have emerged in recent days linked back to the Islamic Republic.
President Hassan Rouhani said yesterday there were no immediate plans to quarantine cities, but he acknowledged it may take “one, two or three weeks” to get control of the virus in Iran.
As Iran’s 80 million people find themselves increasingly isolated in the region by the outbreak, the country’s sanctions-battered economy saw its currency slump to its lowest level against the US dollar in a year.
Rouhani sought to portray the virus crisis in terms of Iran’s tense relationship with the US, which under President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from its nuclear deal with world powers and sent its economy into freefall.
“We must not let the United States attach a new virus to the coronavirus by stopping our social activities through tremendous fear. This is a conspiracy we see today and you see in foreign propaganda,” Rouhani said at a Cabinet meeting, according to a transcript on the presidency’s website.
The comments by Rouhani came as Iran appeared to be slowly coming to grips with the scope of the crisis.
In Tehran overnight, mass transit workers disinfected buses and the capital’s subway system, removing overhead handles to try to limit surfaces where the virus could rest. Traffic again appeared lighter on Tehran’s normally gridlocked roads amid a winter rain. Signs warned Iranians not to touch surfaces in crowded areas.
In Qom photos published by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency showed doctors wearing high-end face masks.
The masks are difficult to find in Iran, as is alcohol-based hand sanitiser and other materials, because Iranian law typically prohibits the import of items that can be made locally. Those rules have been loosened in the crisis.