Coronavirus in Iran - Case Study

Introduction

Iran’s death rate from the coronavirus is higher than in other hard-hit nations. With 27,017 confirmed cases so far, and 2077 deaths, Iran is paying a heavy price for the mismanagement, dishonesty, and self-serving priorities of its Islamist clerical regime. “Iran’s totalitarian rulers remain in denial about the scope and consequences of the pandemic, preferring to save face rather than save lives”. James Phillips, senior researcher for Middle Eastern affairs at the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

So why was Iran hit so hard with COVID-19 and to what degree is the Iranian regime responsible? Is the problem lack of medical equipment because of the imposed sanctions? Or lack of management from the state itself? In my case study, I will be doing research through multiple resources, international media, Iranian state media, and speaking to Iranians that are currently working in the medical field in Iran. This issue is a big controversy right now and I plan to get to the truth through my unbiased research.

How it began

Authorities believe the outbreak started in Qom, the stronghold of Iran’s Shiite clergy, southwest of the capital, Tehran. Authorities suggested that perhaps an infected Iranian businessman brought it from China. Qom draws Chinese students to its seminaries for religious studies. It is also along a $2.7 billion high-speed train route being built by a Chinese company.

Iran also went ahead with its February 21 election, two days after the first confirmed cases were announced. Here, we can clearly see that the symptoms of the virus can last 2 weeks before anyone realizes them, so by February 21, the virus has to be already spread out. But the regime didn’t announce it to not harm the show up of the population to the elections. In November 2019, anti-government protests in Iran demonstrated the Iranian people’s dissatisfaction with the regime. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accused the country’s enemies of exaggerating the threat posed by the coronavirus shortly before the elections to discourage the turnout of voters, which he knew would be low due to the lack of popular support for the regime. Also, the government wanted to boost its legitimacy after shooting down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 people aboard. Days earlier, a US drone strike in Iraq killed top Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, further shaking its credibility.

In Qom, Iran kept open the gold-domed shrine of Fatima Masumeh, a Shiite saint. Crowds throng there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to touch and kiss it. Other countries, by comparison, closed or thoroughly cleaned churches, mosques and holy sites. The ayatollahs played down the danger of the outbreak and delayed taking decisive measures to slow the spread of the virus to project total control and invincibility, and to avoid damaging the regime’s political, ideological, and economic interests. There are also more than 700 Chinese students at Qom Seminary and at al-Mustafa International University, giving Qom the largest Chinese population in Iran. In any event, as COVID-19 cases began to multiply in Qom, the Iranian regime failed to enact serious measures to contain the outbreak. Religious shrines in Qom remained open, as authorities initially balked at closing the shrines to the public, which would have reduced the income earned from millions of pilgrims each year. “We found out a little late that the coronavirus had entered Iran because we mistook it for the flu,” said Reza Malekzadeh, a deputy health minister.

The government has stopped short of ordering major travel restrictions, even for Nowruz (Persian New Year’s) when millions are on the move. It hasn’t explained why, but there could be worry about further angering its people or slowing down its sanctions-hurt economy.

Lack of medical equipment due to international sanctions

U.S. sanctions on Iran, which dramatically intensified since the Donald Trump administration withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, have crippled Iran’s economy. But still, Iran has one of the Mideast’s best medical systems. Osman Dar, a project director at Chatham House’s Global Health Program, said that “as a result of the sanctions, Iran is less able to access quality-assured medical equipment and countermeasures necessary for combating the outbreak... and so is more limited in its response capacity than some neighboring countries.” That equipment includes personal protective gear and medicine, Dar said, which “may be accounting for some of the increased mortality rate that we’ve seen.”

Which is true, but the outbreak we are witnessing now has nothing to do with medical capability, and it’s to blame on the intentional hiding of the issue for other reasons. Which have led to this crisis. If the Iranian regime were to act on time, the situation would have been under control. Right now, its hospitals appear overwhelmed and authorities have asked for 172 million masks from abroad. It also has asked the International Monetary Fund for $5 billion, the first such loan for Iran since 1962. Dr. Amir A. Afkhami of George Washington University who studies Iran, said the loan request “speaks to how dire the situation is getting and them realizing that it’s spun out of control.” Also, The US has denied that its sanctions are restricting Iran's ability to import medical supplies, pointing to an exemption for humanitarian goods. But Iran says companies find it difficult to process payments with banks unwilling to risk breaking US rules and risk sanctions themselves.

Many countries, including China, Turkey, Germany, France, UK, Japan, Qatar, the UAE, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Russia have sent aid packages. The World Health Organization (WHO) has sent Iran diagnostic kits and protective equipment for healthcare workers, including 7.5 tons of medical supplies. So we can conclude that the sanctions are not to blame.

The extent

By Feb. 24, the virus had spread to most of the 31 provinces in Iran. In addition to the local population, elite members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and religious clerics have tested positive for the disease at an alarming rate. At least 25 Iranian officials and clerics have been infected, 12 of them dying from the illness. That number continues to climb daily, with no foreseeable end. Rouhani publicly refused to institute nationwide quarantines, calling them “anarchic,” and boasted of Iran’s public health system. Iranian doctors and nurses in overwhelmed hospitals say that they have been warned by security officials to keep quiet about the scale of the virus outbreak and have been forced to attribute deaths to other causes in official paperwork. Security forces stationed at hospitals have threatened to arrest medical personnel who disclose the number of patients, fatalities, or shortages of equipment.

The Islamist regime in Tehran is clearly more interested in controlling information and people than in controlling COVID-19. "The situation is very difficult; the authorities do not provide the exact figures of the dead, they have even arrested a staff member who shot film inside a hospital, where you could see it was filled with dead people inside a cellar, and the situation is much worse now. No one is reporting the real death toll." said one 30-something professional in Mazandaran, the third most impacted province. In his view, the government fears more mass regime protests should the actual severity of the issue be brought to light.

Also, Iran's supreme leader refused American assistance to fight the new coronavirus citing a conspiracy theory claiming it could be man-made by the United States government. "I do not know how real this accusation is but when it exists, who in their right mind would trust you to bring them medication?" Khamenei said. "Possibly your medicine is a way to spread the virus more." He also alleged the virus "is specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians, which they have obtained through different means. You might send people as doctors and therapists, maybe they would want to come here and see the effect of the poison they have produced in person," Khamenei said. But US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced Ayatollah Khamenei's remarks, saying his "lies" were endangering people's lives.

Where to from here

Iran’s 80 million people, whose sense of high risk has been dulled by years of international isolation, are crowding grocery stores and butcher shops, suspicious of state media. “The lack of public trust in government has meant that directives to stay in aren’t being followed, as people are panicking and heading to hospitals to get tested, worsening the spread of the disease,” said Dina Esfandiary, a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Iran is situated at a geographical crossroads in the Middle East and surrounded by countries with creaking infrastructure and challenging humanitarian conditions, Iran's situation gives cause for worry. Iraq, Canada, Georgia, Lebanon, New Zealand and Qatar have now confirmed coronavirus infections among people arriving from Iran. Iranian authorities have taken measures to counter the virus' spread, including cancelling Friday prayers in several cities, closing schools, shutting parliament until "further notice" and restricting travel within the country. But it’s already too late. So why did Iran not stop flights to China in the first place? There is a rational explanation; China is one of the last countries buying their oil. They need to maintain the economic link. After conducting my research, I have to conclude that Iranians have been put at risk by the callous policies of a clerical dictatorship that values retaining power, protecting its image, and safeguarding its own economic, political, and ideological interests over public health.

The virus is not going away, and it seems that more trenches will need to be dug for mass graves to accommodate the many more deaths and infections that are in Iran’s future.