Outbreak of coronavirus in Iran tests besieged government
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — After facing sanctions and the risk of war amid tensions with the United States, Iran’s Shiite theocracy now has an enemy in the new coronavirus that infiltrated its leadership in plain view of state-controlled media and despite repeated denials of any looming threat.
The outbreak of the new virus in Iran has been dramatic — the head of Iran’s task force to stop the illness, known as COVID-19, was seen coughing, sweating and wheezing across televised interviews before acknowledging he was infected. Then, days later, a visibly pale official sat only feet away from President Hassan Rouhani and other top leaders before she too reportedly was diagnosed with the virus.
The virus also has laid bare the challenges facing the Islamic Republic some 40 years after its founding. While its civilian government urges Shiite shrines to be closed, clerics keep them open and some circulate purported remedies to the virus that have no basis in science. Tehran’s top-down government, where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has final say on all state matters, now has to come to terms with the highest death toll from the virus outside of China, days after insisting everything was fine.
Iran’s success — or failure — in combating in the virus will have an impact far beyond the country’s 80 million people as the majority of cases in the Mideast now link back to Iran.
“We will have a tough week ahead,” Iranian Health Minister Saeed Namaki warned. “The main peak of the coronavirus will be in next week and coming days.”
On Friday, Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour again reported a huge spike in cases, saying there were now 388 confirmed coronavirus cases in Iran and 34 deaths.
But questions still remain over Iran’s count. Experts, including at the World Health...