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VOA – Reports of the coronavirus infecting members of Iran\u2019s establishment have angered Iranians, with some dismissing the infections as fake, and others accusing elites of monopolizing access to medical testing. Deputy Parliament speaker Abdul Reza Misri said Tuesday that 23 of Iran\u2019s 290 lawmakers had the virus, a big jump from the handful who posted online videos in the preceding week saying they were infected. Misri did not provide a full list of the infected lawmakers\u2019 names. Iranian state media have said at least a dozen other prominent government and religious figures also have tested positive for the virus since late February, most notably Masoumeh Ebtekar, vice president for women and family affairs.<\/p>\n
They said several of them died of the COVID-19 disease caused by the virus, including Mohammad Mir-Mohammadi, an adviser to Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Hadi Khosroshahi, a former ambassador to the Vatican, and Hussein Sheikh al-Islam, an adviser to Iran\u2019s foreign minister.<\/p>\n
Iranian news sites announced the death of Sheikh al-Islam, another former diplomat, Thursday.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s health ministry said the national death toll from the virus rose to 107 out of 3,513 confirmed cases Thursday, compared to 92 deaths and 2,922 cases the day before. It also said it had detected the virus in all 31 Iranian provinces for the first time, with Bushehr being the last province added to the list.<\/p>\n
Some Iranians, suspicious of their government after it admitted to falsely denying responsibility for the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet in January, have used social media to accuse officials of misleading the public again, this time about the severity of the outbreak and how it has affected the ruling political and religious elites.<\/p>\n
In calls to the Wednesday edition of VOA Persian\u2019s “Straight Talk” show, some viewers in Iran said they suspected that at least some establishment figures were pretending to be infected with the coronavirus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey lie about those Iranian officials who are suffering from COVID-19,\u201d said a man who identified himself as Amir. \u201cThey just want to show that (the virus) is not a big deal and we are all in it together.\u201d<\/p>\n
A woman named Bahar who said she was calling from the northern city of Karaj told “Straight Talk” she considered it strange that so many Iranian officials declared themselves to be infected with the virus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess it is just a gesture to say, ‘We stand with the people,’\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
VOA could not independently verify the callers\u2019 identities.<\/p>\n
Iranian global health scholar Kamiar Alaei, co-president of the Institute for International Health and Education in Albany, New York, told VOA Persian that suspicions of Iranian officials pretending to have the virus are \u201ccompletely understandable\u201d in light of public distrust toward the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it is hard to verify that, and I don\u2019t think everybody has pretended,\u201d Alaei added, pointing to the deaths of some of the infected establishment figures.<\/p>\n
Alaei said several factors appear to have contributed to the spread of the virus in Iran\u2019s ruling circles, such as establishment figures potentially being in contact with travelers from China, a key Iranian economic partner that has seen the world\u2019s worst coronavirus outbreak. Iran and China have maintained air links in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Alaei said other contributing factors include frequent travel by political and religious figures to Qom, the Iranian holy city where the virus has had the severest impact, and the custom of greeting people with kisses to the cheek, a type of close contact that can spread the virus.<\/p>\n
Iranian social media users also have complained about the apparent ease of government and religious leaders getting access to the nation\u2019s limited medical testing resources, and the speed with which some of those figures have received the results of coronavirus tests.<\/p>\n
In a Feb. 26 tweet, Iranian health ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said the number of labs approved for diagnosing the coronavirus had increased from two to seven. He promised that the total number of operational labs would be expanded further to 22 by this week.<\/p>\n
A day earlier, Mahmoud Sadeghi was the first Iranian lawmaker to declare that he had contracted the virus in a\u00a0video posted to Telegram<\/a>.<\/p>\n Two more Iranian lawmakers later made similar announcements.<\/p>\n Mojtaba Zolnour\u00a0posted a\u00a0Twitter video<\/a>\u00a0Feb. 27, and Masoumeh Aghapour Alishahi posted an\u00a0Instagram clip<\/a>\u00a0Feb. 29.<\/p>\n Iranian Parliament spokesman Asadollah Abbasi told state media Saturday that 100 lawmakers had used the nation\u2019s limited number of labs to test themselves for the virus and the rest would follow.<\/p>\n \u201cThey did very proactive testing on members of Parliament, senior officials and their family members,\u201d said Alaei. \u201cTesting is not recommended for people who don\u2019t have symptoms or haven\u2019t had close contact with infected people. It makes the tests less available for those who may be in immediate need, such as already hospitalized patients.\u201d<\/p>\n Alaei, who earned international acclaim for his past work in Iran fighting HIV\/AIDS, said he had seen reports last week of Iranian doctors sending samples to the coronavirus labs and not receiving results.<\/p>\n In one sign of delays in Iranian labs providing test results to non-establishment figures, a 25-year-old hospital nurse who died of respiratory problems in the northern province of Gilan on Feb. 25 was only confirmed to have had the virus on March 2, six days after her death.<\/p>\n