Iran’s COVID-19 Crisis Amplifies, a New Tragedy Is on Horizon
Written by
Shamsi Saadati
Iran’s Covid-19 death toll is rapidly rising. Recently, Iran’s state media have also acknowledged the depth of this crisis and how the regime has created and intensified it.
“According to the heads of the hospitals, the officials have abandoned the management of the Covid-19 outbreak. The hospitals and the people face a severe shortage of medicine,” wrote the state-run Setar-e Sobh daily on August 4.
“Currently, the Covid-19 outbreak in our country has a collection of inefficiencies and mismanagement. According to Dr. Mohammad Reza Zafargandi, Director General of the Medical System Organization, the daily death toll in Iran is more than the European Union, with a population of about 450 million,” wrote the state-run Sharq daily on August 5.
“This is part of people’s daily life who are waiting for the coronavirus to end, but instead of the coronavirus, graves are dug for people,” Sharq wrote.
Sharq also referred to the inauguration of the regime’s new president Ebrahim Raisi on Thursday, during which neither Raisi nor his predecessor Hassan Rouhani refused to speak about the Covid-19 crisis.
According to reports tallied by the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), over 348,700 people have lost their lives due to the Covid-19 outbreak as of Thursday.
The regime’s Health Ministry announced its engineered Covid-19 numbers from the past 24 hours on Thursday as 434 deaths, the highest death toll in the last 99 days.
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak, the MEK has been tracking this crisis and informing the world community and the Iranian society about the depth of the catastrophe in Iran and the regime’s duplicity.
Beginning in 2018, Iran witnessed two major uprisings. Protests encompassed all Iranian cities twice, with people calling for regime change. The regime was able to momentarily oppress these protests, mainly the major Iran protests in November 2019. Yet, protests erupted in January 2020 when the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) shot down a commercial flight.
The rising trend of protests was an existential threat to the mullahs’ regime. So, when the Covid-19 arrived in Iran, the regime used it as an ally to oppress the restive society.
The regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, explicitly called the deadly virus a “test” and “blessing” and later in January 2021 banned credible European and American vaccines.
“The Covid-19 is a tool for [officials] who say they are solving problems by coexistence with this deadly virus and talk less about its side effects and keep the public unaware of the health situation. They achieve their political goals and live in peace for a while,” wrote the state-run Etemad daily on August 5.
The regime refused to issue a nationwide lockdown. But, when protests erupted in Khuzestan and other Iranian cities, the regime closed businesses. “The Covid-19 becomes a tool [for the officials] when the social challenges emerge, and the officials see the red light. In this situation, when people call for justice, the government ignores and tries to pretend the situation is normal,” wrote the Etemad daily in this regard.
Etemad daily underlined that the regime’s inhumane Covid-19 policy has caused “social dissent in the society which emerges daily in different forms, whether political or social.”
Due to the regime’s mismanagement and inhumane coronavirus policy in Iran, medical professionals are under heavy pressure. They work hard to save people’s lives, while the regime refuses to help them, and many of them have not even received their salaries for months.
Iranian nurses: victims of Covid-19 and destructive policies
“If the medical staff lose in their battle against the coronavirus, there would be social, cultural, economic, political, and even security consequences. Lack of sufficient financial resources in various parts of the health system delayed salaries and bonuses has created a wave of dissatisfaction among the medical staff,” wrote the state-run Arman daily in this regard on Thursday.
“Another Covid-19 wave and the continuation of the current condition will cause the medical staff to fail miserably. In this situation where everyone wants to close the country, the Minister of Interior does not consider this issue in the country’s [regime] interest and believes that the closure requires preparations, planning, persuasion, and cooperation of officials and people. Meanwhile, hospitals do not have an empty bed, and patients are admitted to the hospital courtyard,” Arman daily adds.
Arman daily then acknowledges that “These problems have caused the medical staff to be very dissatisfied with the current situation, and their protests have intensified in the past few days.”
As the Covid-19 crisis amplifies in Iran, the people’s hatred toward the regime increases. The people of Iran have nothing left to lose, and this frightens the regime.
“The Covid-19 outbreak is not only a health issue. It can also impact economic, social, and security situations,” Arman daily warned officials on Thursday.
Iran’s COVID-19 Crisis Amplifies, a New Tragedy Is on Horizon