Healthcare workers in Iran have said that the country has seen the worst Coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East, saying that it is “catastrophic” and out of control.

Coronavirus Crisis in Tehran

Payam Tabresi, the head of the Infectious Department at Masih Daneshvari Hospital, in Tehran, explained about the crisis. He said Over 5,000 patients had been hospitalized for coronavirus in the capital alone, which would mean many deaths in the coming days.

He blamed the crisis on officials’ “indifference”, saying that a one-month shutdown of Tehran would severely limit the spread of the virus. But it is unlikely that the regime will agree because this would affect the economy. The regime has also failed to give economic support to people to stay home and stop the spread.

Meanwhile, the spokesperson of the Isfahan Medical Sciences University warned that the COVID-19 death toll would see “double and triple increase” in the coming weeks.

Arash Najimi said that the virus had rendered his city “crisis-ridden” with over 250 emergency cases per day, limited ICU space and exhausted medical staff; some of whom are off work sick with coronavirus.

He said: “Since the start of the COVID-19 epidemic, there was an average of 164 patients in hospitals per day. Last week, the average number of patients increased to 312 people. There are queues for people who need to be admitted to hospitals.”

In Sanandaj, just like everywhere else, the death toll has increased and because of the high amount of deaths and lack of burial space in cemeteries, some COVID-19 victims are being buried in the mountains.

Coronavirus Death Toll

And, as always, it’s also important to look at the national picture, but it’s not pretty. Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi said that over the past seven months, the COVID-19 death toll has been a three-digit figure with 200 deaths per day occasionally. This is far more than the average daily death toll of 68 during the Iran-Iraq war.

Although, as National Influenza Committee member Massoud Mardani said, the death toll may be significantly higher than this.

Iran’s Health Ministry reported a death toll of 27,419 on Tuesday, while the NCRI reported 116,500 deaths as of Monday.

The reason for the discrepancy is that the regime seeks to underplay statistics that make them look bad, so they’ve been threatening relatives and medical staff into reporting Covid-19 deaths with another cause.