Coronavirus death toll exceeds 38,000 as of Saturday

On Saturday evening, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) announced that the coronavirus (COVID-19) death toll in Iran has now reached 38,300 as of 6 pm Central European Standard Time.

The MEK has gathered these figures from trusted sources (e.g. relatives, MEK members, nurses, doctors, hospital administrators, care workers) on the ground in 306 cities across Iran and double-checked them to make sure that no one has been reported twice (i.e. by a relative and a medical professional).

Although, please remember that these figures announced on Saturday do not include many other provinces who did not update their numbers in the past 24 hours. In addition, the deaths per province and the overall death statistics are likely lower than the true number because of the secrecy enforced by the regime over the coronavirus outbreak.

The regime, which claims a ridiculously low death rate of just 5,957, has been trying to prevent the real figures from leaking by forcing medical staff to record false numbers of deaths, refusing to test everyone who shows symptoms and threatening families not to reveal the true cause of death. (It is likely that any ordinary person who defies the regime would be charged with some sort of national security crime and either imprisoned for a long time or executed.)

In addition, the regime has fired five health officials so far for daring to question the regime’s official statistics.

This includes:

• Mohammad Hossein Ghorbani, the representative of the Health Ministry in Gilan, on April 27
• Hassan Adeli, the Deputy Head of Education at the Medical Sciences University of Qom, on April 12
• Akhevan Akbari, the head of the Ardabil Medical Sciences University, on April 11
• Ismail Farzaneh, the head of Ardebil’s Khomeini Hospital, on an unknown date
• Mehdi Shadnoush, another representative of the Health Ministry in Gilan, in March

The regime even fired the head of Qom’s cemeteries after a video leaked showing the bodies piling up at one cemetery, which indicated that the true death toll was being disguised.