Maryam Sinaee

The number of deaths from Covid19 is two and a half times the figure being given by the Health Ministry, a member of Iran’s National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce said on Tuesday [October 20]. Dr. Masoud Mardani, who sits on the Scientific Committee of the Taskforce, said that the daily death toll, which has reached more than 300 a day, was “not real.”

“To know how many people lose their lives each day in reality the figure should be multiplied by 2.5,” Mardani said, as quoted by the Iranian Students News Agency.

The 337 deaths in a 24-hour period, announced on Monday, is the highest daily toll since the pandemic began. There were also 4,251 new cases “based on definitive test results.” On Tuesday, the official death toll was 322, with more than 5,000 new infections. If number of deaths is 2.5 times higher, it means compared with the US, Iran has almost 3,000 daily Covid-19 victims, given it spopulation of 83 million.

Mardani, a specialist in infectious and tropical diseases, said that all hospital beds dedicated to Covid patients were occupied. He called the general situation in the health service “not good.”

According to Hamidreza Azizi, Deputy Chairman of the Iranian Nursing Organization, over 31,000 of 70,000 nurses serving coronavirus patients have been infected, with 54 dying and 5,000-6,000 on sick leave due to Covid.  Taskforce officials in Qazvin, Ilam and other provinces have in recent days warned about a serious shortage of oxygen for ventilators.

Dr Payam Tabarsi, Head of the Infectious Diseases at Masih Daneshvari Hospital in Tehran, one of the hospitals dedicated to Covid patients, on Tuesday criticized a failure to enforce the travel bans of last week, pointing out that Iran’s death rate was higher than in countries implementing strict measures and lockdowns.

“The daily admission to the emergency ward of the hospital was around 180 but after the holidays of last week the number has increased to 250,” Dr Tabarsi told television viewers. He warned that the Health Ministry expected the daily death toll to rise to 600 in the coming month.