Iran mandates masks as public shrugs
Country records highest single-day COVID-19 death toll with 163 dead
TEHRAN, IRAN— Iran on Sunday instituted mandatory maskwearing as fears mount over newly spiking reported deaths from the coronavirus, even as its public increasingly shrugs off the danger of the COVID-19 illness it causes.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicized an image of himself in a mask in recent days, urging both public officials and the Islamic Republic’s 80 million people to wear them to stop the virus’s spread.
But public opinion polling and a walk through any of the streets of Tehran show the widespread apathy felt over a pandemic that saw Iran in February among the first countries struck after China.
Whether rooted in fatigue, dismissal or fatalism, that indifference has scared Iranian public health officials into issuing increasingly dire warnings.
“Let me first thank our great people,” a health worker in a hazmat suit in a hospital corridor sarcastically bellows in one dark state TV spot. “You hand in hand with the coronavirus defeated us!”
The new rules mark a turning point for Iran, which has struggled in trying to balance provincial lockdowns to stop the virus’s spread with the fears of stalling out an economy already struggling under U.S. sanctions after America’s withdrawal in 2018 from Tehran’s nuclear deal. Religious considerations also played a role in this Shiite theocracy as authorities declined for weeks to close shrines where the faithful touch or kiss the tombs’ protective bars.
For a moment, it appeared the restrictions and public fear had worked, as reported new cases and deaths from the virus dropped to their lowest levels in May. But new cases soon rose again, with officials initially saying better testing causes the numbers to spike even as they lifted restrictions to boost economic activity.
By mid-June, daily death tolls again routinely rose to triple digits. On Sunday, Iran saw its highest single-day reported death toll of the pandemic with 163 killed.
Fears persist that Iran’s actual death toll from the virus may be nearly double its reported figures, as a parliamentary report in April suggested. Masoud Mardani, a member of the country’s coronavirus task force, recently said sampling from random antibody tests suggest that 18 million Iranians have so far been afflicted by the virus, without elaborating. Iran has only reported over 240,000 confirmed cases.
“We see that some consider being infected with the virus bad and hide it,” a mask-wearing President Hassan Rouhani said Saturday, according to a transcript on the presidency’s website. “If someone knows that they have been infected with coronavirus, they have a religious and human duty to inform others about it.”
To fight the virus’s spread, the Iranian government issued the mask mandate. The new rules require those in Tehran’s subway, riding buses or indoors to wear them. Rouhani said those seeking “public services” also will be required to wear a mask.
Up until this point, wearing a mask in Iran had been encouraged but remained a personal choice.
The state-owned polling centre ISPA published a June survey of 1,055 Tehran residents showing only 41 per cent remain highly worried about the virus, down from 46 per cent in May and 58 per cent in April. The survey offered no margin of error.
That lack of concern also can be seen in media reports suggesting most of the new coronavirus patients attended weddings, parties and funeral services with large groups of other people.
The renewed spike in cases also coincided with Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan that sees people celebrate with their loved ones.