Coronavirus: Don't believe the numbers out of Iran

I last looked at Iran and coronavirus back on March 22nd. I've largely kept up with what is occurring in Iran by reading through the tweets of someone who goes by the name Ali. He seems to have a good grip of what is occurring in the country even though he lives in the UK. Based on his tweets, it looks like Iran is going through a second wave of infections. I will look into that second wave in a future post, but I figured I'd take a look at official versus estimated COVID-19 death counts first.

As of Friday, May 22nd, Worldometer has the official death count at 7,300. To provide some context, RearClearPolitics has a tracker that includes flu deaths. According to the site, using WHO 2017 data, there were 3,156 deaths related to the flu. Based on that info, COVID-19 deaths are 131% higher than flu deaths for the country. Though admittedly for a country of around 82 million that is still a small number.



Yet, as with prior blog posts, I've mentioned that official numbers should not be trusted. There are other estimates out there. Back on March 20th, MIT and Virginia Tech estimated that deaths ranged between 8,400 to 25,800. Their official estimate was 15,485. That number would indicate that COVID-19 deaths are 391% higher than the flu. Also note that this study was done over 2 months ago and so one should assume that a revised number would be much higher. Though, of course, it could also be lower if the model had errors that over-estimated infections and deaths.

National Council of Resistance of Iran (May 22) has a much higher estimate of 43,600.

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) announced on Friday, May 22, 2020, that the Coronavirus death toll in 319 cities across Iran has risen to more than 43,600. The number of victims in Tehran has exceeded 7,090, Khuzestan 3,195, East Azerbaijan 1,545, Lorestan 1,290, Central 606, Kerman 525, and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad 287. According to doctors’ reports, only in Labafinejad Hospital in Tehran, more than 220 people have died of Coronavirus.

This would result in a 1281% higher figure than official reports. It should be noted that both the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran oppose the current government.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard

National Interest (April 10) also wrote about how the virus could impact the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps:

When Iranian authorities first acknowledged that the coronavirus was out-of-control, they put the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of the domestic response. Mohammad Pakpour, commander of the IRGC-Ground Forces for the past decade, told an Iranian audience that his forces were playing a pivotal role in all aspects of the Iranian public health fight, from securing the supply chain to sending forces into the infected zones to spray disinfectant or set up field hospitals . . . If the Revolutionary Guards are at the forefront of the Iranian fight against COVID-19, it is unlikely they will retain pre-COVID-19 readiness.

One thought that I have is that the coronavirus is starting to spread in Yemen. Did it start to spread in Iran via their military assistance of the Houthi rebels? (Saudi Arabia could also be a reason why the virus entered Yemen.) Could Iran's outbreak also impact Hezbollah? I might start to do some research into Hezbollah and if they're being impacted by this virus. Actually, are all of Iran's allies being negatively impacted as Iran has to spend more time focused on their own country? Or is Iran ignoring their citizens and keeping their focus on their allies instead?