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Simulation warns of 3.5mn deaths
“Humanitarian routes”
On March 17, state television quoted the results of a computer simulation conducted by academics at the presitigious Sharif University of Technology in Tehran that predicts that there could be as many as 3.5mn CORVID-19 deaths in Iran if the authorities cannot get a grip on the crisis by the end of May. The best of three possible simulated outcomes, resulting in 12,000 deaths from 120,000 infections, would require officials to have much more success in suppressing the virus with social distancing, citywide quarantines, improved medical supplies and other breakthroughs and measures.
The Trump administration has said medical supplies are available to Iran through a new Swiss humanitarian vehicle approved by the US. However, the Guardian reported on March 18 that UK officials fear this involves so many conditions as to be ineffective.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that “any nation considering humanitarian assistance to Iran should seek the release of all dual and foreign nationals” from Iranian prisons.
March 17 saw Iran release 85,000 prisoners on temporary release to help avoid an explosion of infections in crowded jails. Among them was Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, an Iranian-British dual national accused of activities aimed at toppling Iran’s clerical establishment, which she denies. She was released with an electronic ankle tag on a two-week furlough and banned from moving more than 200 metres from her place of residence.
Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said after her release: “This is a global crisis that affects everyone. Fundamentally there is nothing like a crisis for actually reminding everyone of what is important and what is not. What it means is that some of the old disputes can be settled through humanitarian routes.”
He added: “It would make such a difference if the UK was to provide more medical, humanitarian and drug supplies to Iran.” The coronavirus pandemic, and the repeated Iranian requests for outside medical and financial help, “provided a very different context in which the two countries could operate”, he noted.
The Iranian embassy in London said in a statement: “The fight against such an epidemic crisis requires, however, the mobilisation of all resources at the national and international levels to ensure the benefit of all mankind. We need to work hand in hand to overcome the disease.
“In Iran, thousands are suffering from the virus and millions are self-quarantined, hospitals are overstretched as doctors and nurses and the whole health systems courageously and tirelessly trying in fullest capacity to serve the people.
“Iranian officials, however, since the inception of the national mobilisation to fight the virus in recent weeks, have been facing serious challenges. But above all, the US illegal unilateral sanctions have impeded the governmental and non-governmental institutions to ensure access of the people in need to all medical and health requirements in fighting coronavirus.”
6 IRAN Country Report April 2020 www.intellinews.com
