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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAFP BREAKING Iran deputy health minister tests positive for coronavirus: adviser
Link to tweet
Richard Engel ✔@RichardEngel
Ok.. a big step
AFP news agency ✔@AFP
Replying to @AFP @WHO
#BREAKING Iran deputy health minister tests positive for coronavirus: adviser
6:53 AM - Feb 25, 2020
Link to tweet
Richard Engel ✔@RichardEngel
Irans numbers dont match rest of world. 100 cases or so. 15 deaths. Too many deaths. Too high a percentage. Could mean they are missing many cases, according to math elsewhere.
6:56 AM - Feb 25, 2020
Engel's last tweet is frightening to contemplate.
On edit: Here's Iran's Deputy Health Minister now addressing everyone *without a mask*.
Link to tweet
Ali Arouzi ✔@aliarouzi
And incredibly, he is not wearing a mask!
Abas Aslani @AbasAslani
Deputy Health Minister of #Iran Harirchi who is infected with #CoronaVirus had a joint presser along with spokesman of the government Rabiei yesterday among journalists. A footage published earlier had raised suspicion that he might had been infected with the virus.
Embedded video
7:00 AM - Feb 25, 2020
Deb
(3,742 posts)hatrack
(59,599 posts)Takket
(21,677 posts)That the brutal theocracy is having a hard time figuring out how to deal with a health crisis.
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)every single day.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)superpatriotman
(6,254 posts)And the virus is passing through isolated, rural areas with few hospitals
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)cherryinpa
(301 posts)This stuff is getting real.
If it breaks thru to NYC or LA then its bad news.
Densley packed housing, congested public transport etc.
What a nightmare.
cannabis_flower
(3,769 posts)Mexico City, or Kinshasa or Johannesburg or Tokyo or any number of big metropolitan areas around the world.
I think if it hits Mexico City in particular, it will be hard to keep it out of the US.
bullwinkle428
(20,631 posts)question during the press conference in India.
Kaiserguy
(740 posts)is always the same no matter what is happening. It all great, that is his go to lie
dalton99a
(81,673 posts)Recipe for a Massive Viral Outbreak: Iran Emerges as a Worldwide Threat
Long a regional crossroads, Iran is spreading the new coronavirus to a host of neighboring countries. Many are ill-equipped to cope.
By David D. Kirkpatrick, Farnaz Fassihi and Mujib Mashal
Feb. 24, 2020
Iranians outside a Tehran hospital. Experts warn that the coronavirus may be spreading from Iran throughout the Middle East. Wana News Agency, via Reuters
Religious pilgrims, migrant workers, businessmen, soldiers and clerics all flow constantly across Irans frontiers, often crossing into countries with few border controls, weak and ineffective governments and fragile health systems.
Now, as it struggles to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Iran is also emerging as the second focal point after China for the spread of the disease. Cases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates even one in Canada have all been traced to Iran, sending tremors of fear rippling out from Kabul to Beirut.
The Middle East is in many ways the perfect place to spawn a pandemic, experts say, with the constant circulation of both Muslim pilgrims and itinerant workers who might carry the virus. Irans economy has been strangled by sanctions, its people have lost trust in their government and its leaders are isolated from much of the world, providing little clarity about the extent of the epidemic.
Civil wars or years of unrest have shattered the health systems of several neighboring countries, like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. And most of the region is governed largely by authoritarians with poor track records at providing public transparency, accountability and health services.
It is a recipe for a massive viral outbreak, said Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the former founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on H.I.V./AIDS.
Millions of Muslim pilgrims travel each year from around the region to visit Shiite holy sites in Iran and Iraq. In January alone, 30,000 people returned to Afghanistan from Iran, and hundreds of others continue to make the pilgrimage to Qom, the site of the outbreak, every week, Afghan officials say.
Iraq closed its border with Iran on Saturday, but millions cross it every year. So scores of infected people could potentially have brought the virus to Iraq, depending on how long it has been present in Iran. And as of midday on Monday in Najaf, flights to and from Iran were still taking off and landing.
MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)1. Iran has the virus. A common tactic with suicide bombers linked to Iran was to intentionally infect the bomber with HIV and other diseases. Undoubtedly, Iran will intentionally infect people and send them around the world to spread the disease.
2. Iran and China are closely linked due to help on Irans nuclear program. With any luck, this may stop the program by killing the weapons developers.
Timmygoat
(779 posts)I always thought our government had a section dedicated to the study of this kind of thing and how to fight it!
Timmygoat
(779 posts)We had a government department that dealt with pandemic disease outbreaks, apparently Trump closed it down two years ago.
Farmer-Rick
(10,225 posts)"Its not clear when the new CDC test will be ready and distributed, but because of the test failure, only three out of 100 public-health labs in the U.S. have been able to test for COVID-19, according to the Association of Public Health Laboratories. In addition, the cost of each test is as much as $250, according to Politico, and the HHS has already been running out of money to pay for its response to the outbreak."
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/what-we-know-about-the-trump-admins-response-to-coronavirus.html
So, since we don't know how much of the disease has spread through what parts of the US....because we are out of money and can't test for it anyway... who knows who has it?....unless they die. When you are blind to the actual spread of the disease in your country, you can only guess at who really has it and who doesn't.