12 ms·

Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom

234 points by oska 7y ago

jarmitage 7y ago
Reminder that WHO publishes a daily situation report about COVID-19, which is calmer and more informative than most headlines/media stories: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  More facts here: https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/ https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus...
- ISL 7y ago
  What is the difference between Figures 2 and 3 (besides n)?
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
    Fig 2 shows onset of symptoms. Fig 3 shows date that they were confirmed to have Covid-19.
- rasz 7y ago
  >calmer and more informative Full of self reported made up numbers.
- hurricanetc 7y ago
  The WHO has come across as pretty incompetent in my opinion. We could have stopped this disease from spreading outside of China but the WHO consistently downplayed the severity and claimed travel bans were overkill and would be too damaging economically. Now they’re saying it’s likely too late to contain the virus. Well I wonder what will be more damaging to the economy? The proposed travel bans or the catastrophic effects of a worldwide pandemic? How many people will die in underdeveloped countries because the WHO didn’t act aggressively enough when they had a chance? If this hits Africa 10 million could die. Thanks WHO
  - gnud 7y ago
    Do you remember the uproar and all the anti-vaccine sentiment after WHO was seen to "cry wolf" during the last H1N1 outbreak in 2014 or so? That's probably the reason they were more careful this time. It's hard to know early on exactly how a disease will spread, and how dangerous it will turn out to be.
    - raducu 7y ago
      Then let's just fuck WHO, we can play tit for tat just as easily.
    - hurricanetc 7y ago
      If the WHO is scared to be aggressive in their recommendations because of blowback six years ago then they are even more incompetent than I thought. It’s not as if outbreaks like this happen often. It would be difficult for the WHO to be labeled as overreacting when they only get an opportunity to react once or twice a decade. The fact that it’s hard to know how dangerous a disease will be is a reason to be extra careful, not the other way around. Not knowing how dangerous something is doesn’t mean we should blunder forward and hope for the best.
  - glitchdigger 7y ago
    Anyone that trusts the WHO is a plank anyway. These weirdo globalist fuckers are probably connected to those responsible for its deployment. Don’t trust the WHO or the UN for a second.
    - huebomont 7y ago
      This is some real tinfoil hat shit
    - skinnymuch 7y ago
      I can see an argument for the WHO not being very good. But the end of your response to them being the ones also creating and pushing the virus in the first place...come on
    - 7y ago
- koheripbal 7y ago
  Any organization that claims travel restrictions don't slow virus spreads are beyond incompetent. Moreover, their blind acceptance of official Chinese data is so naive, it is ludicrous.
- tree3 7y ago
  Reminder that China has not allowed WHO to observe the outbreak closely. WHO is simply repeating China's likely fake numbers.
tomalpha 7y ago
> “No one is qualified to discuss this sort of news at all,” Haririchi said This almost made me laugh out loud, tragic though any deaths and disablement are. It does seem to get to the heart of the matter, and not just in Iran either.
- Angostura 7y ago
  Sounds like a slightly mangled quote - I think he's saying that no-one outside of the ministry has access to the Coronavirus mortality figures, so the lawmaker is presumably pulling the figures out of his butt.
  - oefrha 7y ago
    The immediate sentence following gp’s out of context quote: > adding that lawmakers have no access to coronavirus statics and could be mixing figures on deaths related to other diseases like the flu with the new virus, which first emerged in China in December. So, not necessarily out of his butt, could be mixed up. In any case, 12 dead out of 61 (a quickly rising figure) is already terrible.
    - _-___________-_ 7y ago
      The 61 is almost certainly rising much more quickly than the 12. Many cases don't get counted early on, so the fatality rate at this stage is overstated and largely meaningless. Same thing happened everywhere else with a suddenly-noticed largeish outbreak.
      - oefrha 7y ago
        > Same thing happened everywhere else with a suddenly-noticed largeish outbreak. I’ve been paying pretty close attention since early on and nowhere else with a suddenly-noticed largish outbreak had a temporary death rate remotely close to 20%. Not even in Wuhan. In fact 12 deaths currently ranks #3 on the global death count chart when each Chinese province is counted as a separate entity, and any comparable entity has an order of magnitude more cases at least. Also, it was 8 deaths out of 43 yesterday, so 61 isn’t growing faster than 12. Without more info, I blame this on shitty medical treatment. 20% roughly matches the percentage of severe cases elsewhere.
LatteLazy 7y ago
This would be a fantastic time for the US to drop its bs rhetoric, work with Iran, and save lives both there and in the rest of the world.
- JPKab 7y ago
  This would be a fantastic time for Iran to drop it's bs sponsorship of Hezbollah, Assad, Shiite militias, Houthi rebels, work with the US, and save lives both there and in the rest of the world.
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  - ianleeclark 7y ago
    Why is that the bar for preventing a pandemic? I guess it makes sense if you're generally okay with sanctions: killing off a population slowly to force unrest. However, I just don't see why this is the requirement for something that won't be regionally restricted. It's cutting your nose to spite your face.
    - heartbeats 7y ago
      No, it's cutting off someone else's nose to spite their face. Big difference.
      - ianleeclark 7y ago
RandomInteger4 7y ago
Fucking hell, these politicians are as much a virus as the virus itself. 100% that number was pulled straight from their hindquarters.
- zabana 7y ago
  how do you know this ? Are you in IRAN can you confirm or infirm the figures ?
- throway1n 7y ago
  apparently the government itself is disputing these figures: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-live-updates-china-wuhan-hubei-latest-news-italy-lombardy-south-korea-iran-japan-cases-infections-death-toll-outbreak-xi-jinping-update?page=with:block-5e53aa4b8f0811db2fafd5aa#block-5e53aa4b8f0811db2fafd5aa https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavir... yet you are getting downvoted for a legitimate concern. either iranian government trolls are lurking and downvoting or the 5th column in the us which takes side with iran just to spite trump and republicans.
hu3 7y ago
> Health Ministry spokesman Iraj Harirchi rejected the Qom lawmaker’s claims, insisting the death toll from the virus remains at 12. Who to trust?
- StanislavPetrov 7y ago
  As in every circumstance, nobody.
- jeltz 7y ago
  Neither of them. Both have plenty of motive to lie.
aaron695 7y ago
This is a excellent case of the total failure of the media. Iran had obviously lost total control two days ago. Yet the media is still going on about South Korean and Italy, it seems clueless. We also need the immediate relaxation of sanctions around this on Iran. I 'think' WHO might be breaking some sanctions by currently helping Iran.
- bilekas 7y ago
  Lets blame the media ? What are you talking about. The media is reporting whats happening as it gets it, if Iran's media is being silenced that got nothing to do with the virus itself and more about the control of panic. > We also need the immediate relaxation of sanctions around this on Iran I'm pretty sure the WHO couldn't give a rats about US sanctions when it comes to human rights and world health.
  - aaron695 7y ago
    > The media is reporting whats happening as it gets it, No they simply are not. Should I be watching Fox? Iran has 12 people dead atm. This is unheard of in any country other than China. We have known this high toll for 3 days. Last Friday is was thought to be 9! Who has headlined this? CNN has Italy and South Korea as it's headlines right now and today, they pail in comparison to Iran. This is not a high toll, this is out of control spread of the disease. I feel like this is a clown world. Korea and Italy are not the same as what's going on in Iran. It's taken this latest report of 50, to make any headway in the news. As to the WHO not caring I doubt that, but it's still not the point, companies need to be able to free allow supplies in. I don't know what sanctions are in place but companies for instance that supply gasses like oxygen need to know they are allowed to export it to Iran and how do they receive funds? Why does this article not mention the sanctions if the media is on top of this? Yes I blame the media. https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/02/23/619365/Iran-coronavirus-outbreak-test-kits-sanctions https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/02/23/619365/Iran-corona...
    - senordevnyc 7y ago
      The NY Times app has consistently had the outbreak in one of the top 2-3 spots for weeks now. Their live updates listed right now show official figures from Iran, Italy, and South Korea, as well as news about China and global markets reacting to the news. I’ve been closely watching both the NYT and the more panic-driven subreddits for a month now and I haven’t seen anything of substance that the NYT has missed. They usually lag by minutes to as much as a day, likely because they’re actually fact-checking instead of just mashing the post button like Reddit. If you’re looking for large news organizations to freak out about every little unsubstantiated rumor or crackpot theory that circulates the web, then I don’t know what to tell you. Except that you’re willfully ignoring the 90% of the time those crackpot ideas turn out to be wrong and spreading them to billions of people would do far more harm than good, especially compared to just waiting to get the facts straight.
oska 7y ago
Some further context on the discrepancy between this figure and official figures: > The Iranian government has denied trying to cover up the full extent of the coronavirus outbreak after reports suggested that the death toll from the disease was more than four times higher than official figures claim. > On Monday, a lawmaker from Qom – a Shia holy city 120 km (75 miles) south of the capital Tehran which has seen a cluster of cases – accused Iran’s health minister of “lying” about the scale of the outbreak. > According to the semi-official ILNA news agency, which is close to reformists, the lawmaker, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, said there had been “50 deaths” from the coronavirus in Qom alone. > “The rest of the media have not published this figure, but we prefer not to censor what concerns the coronavirus because people’s lives are in danger,” ILNA editor Fatemeh Madiani told Agence France-Presse (AFP). > But the country’s deputy health minister rejected the report. In a news conference broadcast live on state television, Iraj Harirchi said that 12 people had died from the coronavirus and 66 had been infected. > “I categorically deny this information,” said Iraj Harirchi. > “This is not the time for political confrontations. The coronavirus is a national problem,” he added. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-live-updates-china-wuhan-hubei-latest-news-italy-lombardy-south-korea-iran-japan-cases-infections-death-toll-outbreak-xi-jinping-update?page=with:block-5e53aa4b8f0811db2fafd5aa#block-5e53aa4b8f0811db2fafd5aa https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavir...
allovernow 7y ago
Is it time to start treating this like a big deal yet? Their first case was three weeks ago and 50 deaf already? This virus is unprecedented and it is only responsible for individuals with means to start preparing. No reason to wait for the government to tell you to do so. Plus each person that does it early is one less for the potential store rush.
- shard972 7y ago
  Not until it kills more than H1N1 apparently.
- akie 7y ago
  > This virus is unprecedented I think you need to read up on your history.
  - tome 7y ago
    If you have particularly useful historical information to hand then it would probably better to share it rather than hint at its existence.
    - throwaway8941 7y ago
      Here's a useful index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
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    - WJW 7y ago
      Everyone who had history in high school has historical information about this. There have been numerous plagues throughout history with higher infectivity, higher lethality, and both relatively and absolutely higher death counts. Don't put the burden of looking up simple and easily findable information on other posters when you can easily google it yourself.
yyyk 7y ago
Iranian 'supreme leader' playbook: 1) Find out about disease outbreak before elections. 2) Tell your people that the reports are a Western conspiracy to lower turnout. (e.g. [0]) 3) Get utterly shocked when people die. How could you have known!? [0] https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1231530523740266496 https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1231530523740266496
- dogma1138 7y ago
  The turnouts were very low this time because they allowed only conservative candidates to run, they have enough ways to rig their elections they'll do #2 just for fun tho.
  - yyyk 7y ago
    True that. The point is that the Iranian authorities knew in advance about the disease, yet underplayed it so that the already low turnout won't be lower. Not only that, they kept regular civilian flights to China upto a few days ago while nearly everyone else was restricting flight.
rapsey 7y ago
I guess Iran is like the South Korea problem spread across the entire country. The vast majority of cases in South Korea are in a religious sect. For Iran mosques are places where so many are in close proximity.
- squiggleblaz 7y ago
  There's a cluster in Singapore that spread at a church. But what does it mean? In Berlin or Paris it could suddenly spread on the trains, or at a spectator sport event. Being secular isn't going to stop you from breathing in air that other people are breathing out. Everyone's susceptible to this.
  - sfifs 7y ago
    Doesn't spread by air from all current evidence. Spreads by saliva and nasal fluid droplets. In the churches in Singapore, it is thought that the spread happened from the congregation eating food from shared bowls after the service. Communion service in catholic churches is also a potential vector. There are two big church linked clusters in Singapore. Langar in Sikh gurdwaras are probably less risky because generally cutlery and plates are not shared but best to be cautious about shared/buffet type setups. Public transport is considered relatively safer in Singapore especially as cleaning has been steeped up. There's a story in Hong Kong about the whole big family getting it after sharing a traditional Chinese meal.
tiborsaas 7y ago
With the 150+ Italian cases (3 dead), it's probably safe to say that the virus is out of our control... which we probably never had. https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970 https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970
- guidedlight 7y ago
  Try 215 cases and 4 deaths
  - melonkidney 7y ago
    A fifth death has just been confirmed, sadly. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-italy-death/fifth-person-dies-in-coronavirus-outbreak-in-northern-italy-official-idUSKCN20I171 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-italy-death/...
    - elohir 7y ago
      and now its six https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-live-updates-china-wuhan-hubei-latest-news-italy-lombardy-south-korea-iran-japan-cases-infections-death-toll-outbreak-xi-jinping-update?page=with:block-5e53d2058f08e133247491ec#block-5e53d2058f08e133247491ec https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavir...
      - elohir 7y ago
        and now its seven https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-live-updates-china-wuhan-hubei-latest-news-italy-lombardy-south-korea-iran-japan-cases-infections-death-toll-outbreak-xi-jinping-update?page=with:block-5e53de298f0811db2fafd795#block-5e53de298f0811db2fafd795 https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavir...
- swarnie_ 7y ago
  Its disappointing, China seemed a lot more open and transparent this time around compared to SARS. Unfortunately i still don't trust the numbers they publish.
gzer0 7y ago
Around 99% of the patients developed a high temperature, while more than half experienced fatigue and a dry cough. About a third also experienced muscle pain and difficulty breathing. Research from the Chinese Center for Disease Control suggests that around 80% of coronavirus cases are mild. Around 15% of patients have gotten severe cases, and 5% have become critically ill. Here's how symptoms progress among typical patients: - Day 1: Patients run a fever. They may also experience fatigue, muscle pain, and a dry cough. A small minority of them may have had diarrhea or nausea one to two days before. - Day 5: Patients may have difficulty breathing — especially if they are older or have a preexisting health condition. - Day 7: This is how long it takes, on average, before patients are admitted to a hospital, according to the Wuhan University study. - Day 8: At this point, patients with severe cases (15%, according to the Chinese CDC) develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), an illness that occurs when fluid builds up the lungs. ARDS is often fatal. - Day 10: If patients have worsening symptoms, this is the time in the disease's progression when they're most likely to be admitted to the ICU. These patients probably have more abdominal pain and appetite loss than patients with milder cases. Only a small fraction die: The current fatality rate hovers around 2%. - Day 17: On average, people who recover from the virus are discharged from the hospital after two-and-a-half weeks. ---- [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2761044 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2761044 [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-covid19-day-by-day-symptoms-patients-2020-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-covid19-day-by-d... Not allowed to do this and not sure how long this will be up; the entire UpToDate reprint on the latest we know about COVID-19 (Coronavirus) [3] https://www.scribd.com/document/448592904/COVID-19 https://www.scribd.com/document/448592904/COVID-19 ---- Stay vigilant, stay careful, but most importantly, do not spread false information.
- doctorphys 7y ago
  Thank you for this. The day by day symptoms are CRITICAL. We are seeing patients well beyond the day 5: difficulty breathing condition. Your last statement is imperative.
- funklute 7y ago
  Are you aware if there is any data yet on what proportion of recoveries will experience lasting lung/other damage? For example, is the permanent lung damage seen so far (which I've only anecdotally read about, I must admit) mostly related to ARDS?
avindroth 7y ago
According to this video[1], there are speculations that given its high mortality rate, the virus in Iran has mutated. [1]: https://youtu.be/02TwdiRUJTA https://youtu.be/02TwdiRUJTA
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  - throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
    Spreading scary ideas that could “maybe” be true to laypeople with no ability to interpret “maybe” is highly likely to be more help than hurt
Keloo 7y ago
The dashboard for monitoring the virus: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...
- qiqitori 7y ago
  Here's a dashboard on the same site for Japan's prefectures: https://jagjapan.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/641eba7fef234a47880e1e1dc4de85ce https://jagjapan.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.htm...
ihiulll 7y ago
I don't recall any such information. There's people on this site of all different ages, who grew up in all sorts of different places. How do you know what their high-school history covered? In my school, history was mandatory in the first year of high-school, and I think it might have been in the second year as well. Hardly anyone did it as a subject for the remainder of their high-school years. Needless to say, the content taught in those first 1-2 years barely even scratched the surface of historical topics.
Merrill 7y ago
It seems odd that there are no cases reported in Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200223-sitrep-34-covid-19.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... Possibly these countries have no way of monitoring and reporting COVID-19? In which case we are likely to have new, large clusters added in the coming weeks.
- mantap 7y ago
  The thing is, although COVID-19 has a long incubation period in some cases, in many cases it has a short one. And about 15-20% of people will end up in hospital. So it can only spread under the radar for a limited period of time before it becomes obvious. The symptoms are well known by this point, dry cough, fever, shortness of breath.
  - Merrill 7y ago
    Detecting small numbers of COVID-19 cases against the larger background of flu and other respiratory illnesses is not easy. It's quite likely to go undetected clinically until there is a fairly large number of unexplained pneumonia deaths of related people in a specific location. By this time there has been a lot of local exposure and spread. "Problems with CDC coronavirus test delay expanded U.S. screening" - https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116529 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116...
    - mantap 7y ago
      Yes, a small number of cases could go unnoticed. But you were talking about large clusters. Say 100 people are infected and 15 turn up at hospital with difficulty breathing. For at least one of them, a doctor is going to take a history and notice the characteristic progression (this disease is the most famous disease in the world right now), then report it to their health authority. The large % of cases that require hospitalisation is a terrifying aspect of COVID-19, but it does increase the chance of detection.
coconut_crab 7y ago
I believ the sanction put on Iran by the Trump administration is of the main factors for very high mortality rate of Covid-19. This has caused suffering not just for the Iranian people but the whole region as now Iran lacks the equipments and medicines to put the epidemic under control. But I doubt the current President cares about that... https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/10/29/maximum-pressure/us-economic-sanctions-harm-iranians-right-health https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/10/29/maximum-pressure/us-ec...
- throway1n 7y ago
  the iranian government should have thought about the consequences before making threats of developing nukes. stop taking sides with dictatorships and star worrying more about the people of iran murdered by that barbarian regime.
  - selimthegrim 7y ago
    Surely you don’t wish disease on these people
sudoaza 7y ago
USA unilateral sanctions of Iran are not only ilegal but inhumane and criminal.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  Many view sanctions as war crimes because sanctions, though they superficially target officials/companies/etc, are meant to undermine a nation's economy and hurt the civilian population to pressure foreign governments. Essentially the goal is to starve the men, women and children in order to punish foreign governments. If it was iran or china or russia doing it, we would be calling it a war crime or a crime against humanity. But since we are doing it, we just call it "economic warfare".
  - throway1n 7y ago
    sure, let them develop an economy and build nukes / destabilise the region even more. if anything there is already a bad experience with saudi arabia, and we dont want a repeat. the people of iran if they dont support that murderous government should overthrow it. simple as.
    - deleted 7y ago
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      - throway1n 7y ago
        particularly the US. i hear democracy is bad and apparently the us is ebil for giving those people an opportunity to organise instead of terrorise. funny world we live in. where we now support dictators and call those who liberate “destabilisers”. but yeah the others are pretty toxic.
microcolonel 7y ago
I've seen speculation that the virus in Iran has mutated (or the environment is somehow different), and is producing extremely aggressive complications, killing patients within hours of their hospitalization. At this time of year, there will be even more mass face-kissing and hand-shaking going on than usual. There are entire communities of travelling super-spreaders in Iran right now, this is extremely serious.
- pbourke 7y ago
  Probably not. Most likely it's just become widespread there and they haven't been containing or testing. The deaths and serious cases are the tip of the iceberg.
83hajfjeijg 7y ago
lol hacker news is going full retard with this tinfoil shit. relax.

234 points by oska 7y ago

Reminder that WHO publishes a daily situation report about COVID-19, which is calmer and more informative than most headlines/media stories: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...

rorykoehler 7y ago
More facts here: https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/ https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus...
ISL 7y ago
What is the difference between Figures 2 and 3 (besides n)?
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y ago
  Fig 2 shows onset of symptoms. Fig 3 shows date that they were confirmed to have Covid-19.
rasz 7y ago
>calmer and more informative Full of self reported made up numbers.
hurricanetc 7y ago
The WHO has come across as pretty incompetent in my opinion. We could have stopped this disease from spreading outside of China but the WHO consistently downplayed the severity and claimed travel bans were overkill and would be too damaging economically. Now they’re saying it’s likely too late to contain the virus. Well I wonder what will be more damaging to the economy? The proposed travel bans or the catastrophic effects of a worldwide pandemic? How many people will die in underdeveloped countries because the WHO didn’t act aggressively enough when they had a chance? If this hits Africa 10 million could die. Thanks WHO
- gnud 7y ago
  Do you remember the uproar and all the anti-vaccine sentiment after WHO was seen to "cry wolf" during the last H1N1 outbreak in 2014 or so? That's probably the reason they were more careful this time. It's hard to know early on exactly how a disease will spread, and how dangerous it will turn out to be.
  - raducu 7y ago
    Then let's just fuck WHO, we can play tit for tat just as easily.
  - hurricanetc 7y ago
    If the WHO is scared to be aggressive in their recommendations because of blowback six years ago then they are even more incompetent than I thought. It’s not as if outbreaks like this happen often. It would be difficult for the WHO to be labeled as overreacting when they only get an opportunity to react once or twice a decade. The fact that it’s hard to know how dangerous a disease will be is a reason to be extra careful, not the other way around. Not knowing how dangerous something is doesn’t mean we should blunder forward and hope for the best.
- glitchdigger 7y ago
  Anyone that trusts the WHO is a plank anyway. These weirdo globalist fuckers are probably connected to those responsible for its deployment. Don’t trust the WHO or the UN for a second.
  - huebomont 7y ago
    This is some real tinfoil hat shit
  - skinnymuch 7y ago
    I can see an argument for the WHO not being very good. But the end of your response to them being the ones also creating and pushing the virus in the first place...come on
  - 7y ago
koheripbal 7y ago
Any organization that claims travel restrictions don't slow virus spreads are beyond incompetent. Moreover, their blind acceptance of official Chinese data is so naive, it is ludicrous.
tree3 7y ago
Reminder that China has not allowed WHO to observe the outbreak closely. WHO is simply repeating China's likely fake numbers.

tomalpha 7y ago

> “No one is qualified to discuss this sort of news at all,” Haririchi said This almost made me laugh out loud, tragic though any deaths and disablement are. It does seem to get to the heart of the matter, and not just in Iran either.

Angostura 7y ago
Sounds like a slightly mangled quote - I think he's saying that no-one outside of the ministry has access to the Coronavirus mortality figures, so the lawmaker is presumably pulling the figures out of his butt.
- oefrha 7y ago
  The immediate sentence following gp’s out of context quote: > adding that lawmakers have no access to coronavirus statics and could be mixing figures on deaths related to other diseases like the flu with the new virus, which first emerged in China in December. So, not necessarily out of his butt, could be mixed up. In any case, 12 dead out of 61 (a quickly rising figure) is already terrible.
  - _-___________-_ 7y ago
    The 61 is almost certainly rising much more quickly than the 12. Many cases don't get counted early on, so the fatality rate at this stage is overstated and largely meaningless. Same thing happened everywhere else with a suddenly-noticed largeish outbreak.
    - oefrha 7y ago
      > Same thing happened everywhere else with a suddenly-noticed largeish outbreak. I’ve been paying pretty close attention since early on and nowhere else with a suddenly-noticed largish outbreak had a temporary death rate remotely close to 20%. Not even in Wuhan. In fact 12 deaths currently ranks #3 on the global death count chart when each Chinese province is counted as a separate entity, and any comparable entity has an order of magnitude more cases at least. Also, it was 8 deaths out of 43 yesterday, so 61 isn’t growing faster than 12. Without more info, I blame this on shitty medical treatment. 20% roughly matches the percentage of severe cases elsewhere.

LatteLazy 7y ago

This would be a fantastic time for the US to drop its bs rhetoric, work with Iran, and save lives both there and in the rest of the world.

JPKab 7y ago
This would be a fantastic time for Iran to drop it's bs sponsorship of Hezbollah, Assad, Shiite militias, Houthi rebels, work with the US, and save lives both there and in the rest of the world.
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- ianleeclark 7y ago
  Why is that the bar for preventing a pandemic? I guess it makes sense if you're generally okay with sanctions: killing off a population slowly to force unrest. However, I just don't see why this is the requirement for something that won't be regionally restricted. It's cutting your nose to spite your face.
  - heartbeats 7y ago
    No, it's cutting off someone else's nose to spite their face. Big difference.
    - ianleeclark 7y ago

RandomInteger4 7y ago

Fucking hell, these politicians are as much a virus as the virus itself. 100% that number was pulled straight from their hindquarters.

zabana 7y ago
how do you know this ? Are you in IRAN can you confirm or infirm the figures ?
throway1n 7y ago
apparently the government itself is disputing these figures: https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-live-updates-china-wuhan-hubei-latest-news-italy-lombardy-south-korea-iran-japan-cases-infections-death-toll-outbreak-xi-jinping-update?page=with:block-5e53aa4b8f0811db2fafd5aa#block-5e53aa4b8f0811db2fafd5aa https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavir... yet you are getting downvoted for a legitimate concern. either iranian government trolls are lurking and downvoting or the 5th column in the us which takes side with iran just to spite trump and republicans.

hu3 7y ago

> Health Ministry spokesman Iraj Harirchi rejected the Qom lawmaker’s claims, insisting the death toll from the virus remains at 12. Who to trust?

StanislavPetrov 7y ago
As in every circumstance, nobody.
jeltz 7y ago
Neither of them. Both have plenty of motive to lie.

aaron695 7y ago

This is a excellent case of the total failure of the media. Iran had obviously lost total control two days ago. Yet the media is still going on about South Korean and Italy, it seems clueless. We also need the immediate relaxation of sanctions around this on Iran. I 'think' WHO might be breaking some sanctions by currently helping Iran.

bilekas 7y ago
Lets blame the media ? What are you talking about. The media is reporting whats happening as it gets it, if Iran's media is being silenced that got nothing to do with the virus itself and more about the control of panic. > We also need the immediate relaxation of sanctions around this on Iran I'm pretty sure the WHO couldn't give a rats about US sanctions when it comes to human rights and world health.
- aaron695 7y ago
  > The media is reporting whats happening as it gets it, No they simply are not. Should I be watching Fox? Iran has 12 people dead atm. This is unheard of in any country other than China. We have known this high toll for 3 days. Last Friday is was thought to be 9! Who has headlined this? CNN has Italy and South Korea as it's headlines right now and today, they pail in comparison to Iran. This is not a high toll, this is out of control spread of the disease. I feel like this is a clown world. Korea and Italy are not the same as what's going on in Iran. It's taken this latest report of 50, to make any headway in the news. As to the WHO not caring I doubt that, but it's still not the point, companies need to be able to free allow supplies in. I don't know what sanctions are in place but companies for instance that supply gasses like oxygen need to know they are allowed to export it to Iran and how do they receive funds? Why does this article not mention the sanctions if the media is on top of this? Yes I blame the media. https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/02/23/619365/Iran-coronavirus-outbreak-test-kits-sanctions https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/02/23/619365/Iran-corona...
  - senordevnyc 7y ago
    The NY Times app has consistently had the outbreak in one of the top 2-3 spots for weeks now. Their live updates listed right now show official figures from Iran, Italy, and South Korea, as well as news about China and global markets reacting to the news. I’ve been closely watching both the NYT and the more panic-driven subreddits for a month now and I haven’t seen anything of substance that the NYT has missed. They usually lag by minutes to as much as a day, likely because they’re actually fact-checking instead of just mashing the post button like Reddit. If you’re looking for large news organizations to freak out about every little unsubstantiated rumor or crackpot theory that circulates the web, then I don’t know what to tell you. Except that you’re willfully ignoring the 90% of the time those crackpot ideas turn out to be wrong and spreading them to billions of people would do far more harm than good, especially compared to just waiting to get the facts straight.

oska 7y ago

Some further context on the discrepancy between this figure and official figures: > The Iranian government has denied trying to cover up the full extent of the coronavirus outbreak after reports suggested that the death toll from the disease was more than four times higher than official figures claim. > On Monday, a lawmaker from Qom – a Shia holy city 120 km (75 miles) south of the capital Tehran which has seen a cluster of cases – accused Iran’s health minister of “lying” about the scale of the outbreak. > According to the semi-official ILNA news agency, which is close to reformists, the lawmaker, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, said there had been “50 deaths” from the coronavirus in Qom alone. > “The rest of the media have not published this figure, but we prefer not to censor what concerns the coronavirus because people’s lives are in danger,” ILNA editor Fatemeh Madiani told Agence France-Presse (AFP). > But the country’s deputy health minister rejected the report. In a news conference broadcast live on state television, Iraj Harirchi said that 12 people had died from the coronavirus and 66 had been infected. > “I categorically deny this information,” said Iraj Harirchi. > “This is not the time for political confrontations. The coronavirus is a national problem,” he added. https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-live-updates-china-wuhan-hubei-latest-news-italy-lombardy-south-korea-iran-japan-cases-infections-death-toll-outbreak-xi-jinping-update?page=with:block-5e53aa4b8f0811db2fafd5aa#block-5e53aa4b8f0811db2fafd5aa https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavir...

allovernow 7y ago

Is it time to start treating this like a big deal yet? Their first case was three weeks ago and 50 deaf already? This virus is unprecedented and it is only responsible for individuals with means to start preparing. No reason to wait for the government to tell you to do so. Plus each person that does it early is one less for the potential store rush.

shard972 7y ago
Not until it kills more than H1N1 apparently.
akie 7y ago
> This virus is unprecedented I think you need to read up on your history.
- tome 7y ago
  If you have particularly useful historical information to hand then it would probably better to share it rather than hint at its existence.
  - throwaway8941 7y ago
    Here's a useful index. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
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  - WJW 7y ago
    Everyone who had history in high school has historical information about this. There have been numerous plagues throughout history with higher infectivity, higher lethality, and both relatively and absolutely higher death counts. Don't put the burden of looking up simple and easily findable information on other posters when you can easily google it yourself.

yyyk 7y ago

Iranian 'supreme leader' playbook: 1) Find out about disease outbreak before elections. 2) Tell your people that the reports are a Western conspiracy to lower turnout. (e.g. [0]) 3) Get utterly shocked when people die. How could you have known!? [0] https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1231530523740266496 https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1231530523740266496

dogma1138 7y ago
The turnouts were very low this time because they allowed only conservative candidates to run, they have enough ways to rig their elections they'll do #2 just for fun tho.
- yyyk 7y ago
  True that. The point is that the Iranian authorities knew in advance about the disease, yet underplayed it so that the already low turnout won't be lower. Not only that, they kept regular civilian flights to China upto a few days ago while nearly everyone else was restricting flight.

rapsey 7y ago

I guess Iran is like the South Korea problem spread across the entire country. The vast majority of cases in South Korea are in a religious sect. For Iran mosques are places where so many are in close proximity.

squiggleblaz 7y ago
There's a cluster in Singapore that spread at a church. But what does it mean? In Berlin or Paris it could suddenly spread on the trains, or at a spectator sport event. Being secular isn't going to stop you from breathing in air that other people are breathing out. Everyone's susceptible to this.
- sfifs 7y ago
  Doesn't spread by air from all current evidence. Spreads by saliva and nasal fluid droplets. In the churches in Singapore, it is thought that the spread happened from the congregation eating food from shared bowls after the service. Communion service in catholic churches is also a potential vector. There are two big church linked clusters in Singapore. Langar in Sikh gurdwaras are probably less risky because generally cutlery and plates are not shared but best to be cautious about shared/buffet type setups. Public transport is considered relatively safer in Singapore especially as cleaning has been steeped up. There's a story in Hong Kong about the whole big family getting it after sharing a traditional Chinese meal.

tiborsaas 7y ago

With the 150+ Italian cases (3 dead), it's probably safe to say that the virus is out of our control... which we probably never had. https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970 https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970

guidedlight 7y ago
Try 215 cases and 4 deaths
- melonkidney 7y ago
  A fifth death has just been confirmed, sadly. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-italy-death/fifth-person-dies-in-coronavirus-outbreak-in-northern-italy-official-idUSKCN20I171 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-italy-death/...
  - elohir 7y ago
    and now its six https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-live-updates-china-wuhan-hubei-latest-news-italy-lombardy-south-korea-iran-japan-cases-infections-death-toll-outbreak-xi-jinping-update?page=with:block-5e53d2058f08e133247491ec#block-5e53d2058f08e133247491ec https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavir...
    - elohir 7y ago
      and now its seven https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavirus-live-updates-china-wuhan-hubei-latest-news-italy-lombardy-south-korea-iran-japan-cases-infections-death-toll-outbreak-xi-jinping-update?page=with:block-5e53de298f0811db2fafd795#block-5e53de298f0811db2fafd795 https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/24/coronavir...
swarnie_ 7y ago
Its disappointing, China seemed a lot more open and transparent this time around compared to SARS. Unfortunately i still don't trust the numbers they publish.

gzer0 7y ago

Around 99% of the patients developed a high temperature, while more than half experienced fatigue and a dry cough. About a third also experienced muscle pain and difficulty breathing. Research from the Chinese Center for Disease Control suggests that around 80% of coronavirus cases are mild. Around 15% of patients have gotten severe cases, and 5% have become critically ill. Here's how symptoms progress among typical patients: - Day 1: Patients run a fever. They may also experience fatigue, muscle pain, and a dry cough. A small minority of them may have had diarrhea or nausea one to two days before. - Day 5: Patients may have difficulty breathing — especially if they are older or have a preexisting health condition. - Day 7: This is how long it takes, on average, before patients are admitted to a hospital, according to the Wuhan University study. - Day 8: At this point, patients with severe cases (15%, according to the Chinese CDC) develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), an illness that occurs when fluid builds up the lungs. ARDS is often fatal. - Day 10: If patients have worsening symptoms, this is the time in the disease's progression when they're most likely to be admitted to the ICU. These patients probably have more abdominal pain and appetite loss than patients with milder cases. Only a small fraction die: The current fatality rate hovers around 2%. - Day 17: On average, people who recover from the virus are discharged from the hospital after two-and-a-half weeks. ---- [1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2761044 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2761044 [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-covid19-day-by-day-symptoms-patients-2020-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-covid19-day-by-d... Not allowed to do this and not sure how long this will be up; the entire UpToDate reprint on the latest we know about COVID-19 (Coronavirus) [3] https://www.scribd.com/document/448592904/COVID-19 https://www.scribd.com/document/448592904/COVID-19 ---- Stay vigilant, stay careful, but most importantly, do not spread false information.

doctorphys 7y ago
Thank you for this. The day by day symptoms are CRITICAL. We are seeing patients well beyond the day 5: difficulty breathing condition. Your last statement is imperative.
funklute 7y ago
Are you aware if there is any data yet on what proportion of recoveries will experience lasting lung/other damage? For example, is the permanent lung damage seen so far (which I've only anecdotally read about, I must admit) mostly related to ARDS?

avindroth 7y ago

According to this video[1], there are speculations that given its high mortality rate, the virus in Iran has mutated. [1]: https://youtu.be/02TwdiRUJTA https://youtu.be/02TwdiRUJTA

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- throwawayhhakdl 7y ago
  Spreading scary ideas that could “maybe” be true to laypeople with no ability to interpret “maybe” is highly likely to be more help than hurt

Keloo 7y ago

The dashboard for monitoring the virus: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

qiqitori 7y ago
Here's a dashboard on the same site for Japan's prefectures: https://jagjapan.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/641eba7fef234a47880e1e1dc4de85ce https://jagjapan.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.htm...

ihiulll 7y ago

I don't recall any such information. There's people on this site of all different ages, who grew up in all sorts of different places. How do you know what their high-school history covered? In my school, history was mandatory in the first year of high-school, and I think it might have been in the second year as well. Hardly anyone did it as a subject for the remainder of their high-school years. Needless to say, the content taught in those first 1-2 years barely even scratched the surface of historical topics.

Merrill 7y ago

It seems odd that there are no cases reported in Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Indonesia. https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200223-sitrep-34-covid-19.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... Possibly these countries have no way of monitoring and reporting COVID-19? In which case we are likely to have new, large clusters added in the coming weeks.

mantap 7y ago
The thing is, although COVID-19 has a long incubation period in some cases, in many cases it has a short one. And about 15-20% of people will end up in hospital. So it can only spread under the radar for a limited period of time before it becomes obvious. The symptoms are well known by this point, dry cough, fever, shortness of breath.
- Merrill 7y ago
  Detecting small numbers of COVID-19 cases against the larger background of flu and other respiratory illnesses is not easy. It's quite likely to go undetected clinically until there is a fairly large number of unexplained pneumonia deaths of related people in a specific location. By this time there has been a lot of local exposure and spread. "Problems with CDC coronavirus test delay expanded U.S. screening" - https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116529 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-coronavirus-116...
  - mantap 7y ago
    Yes, a small number of cases could go unnoticed. But you were talking about large clusters. Say 100 people are infected and 15 turn up at hospital with difficulty breathing. For at least one of them, a doctor is going to take a history and notice the characteristic progression (this disease is the most famous disease in the world right now), then report it to their health authority. The large % of cases that require hospitalisation is a terrifying aspect of COVID-19, but it does increase the chance of detection.

coconut_crab 7y ago

I believ the sanction put on Iran by the Trump administration is of the main factors for very high mortality rate of Covid-19. This has caused suffering not just for the Iranian people but the whole region as now Iran lacks the equipments and medicines to put the epidemic under control. But I doubt the current President cares about that... https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/10/29/maximum-pressure/us-economic-sanctions-harm-iranians-right-health https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/10/29/maximum-pressure/us-ec...

throway1n 7y ago
the iranian government should have thought about the consequences before making threats of developing nukes. stop taking sides with dictatorships and star worrying more about the people of iran murdered by that barbarian regime.
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  Surely you don’t wish disease on these people

sudoaza 7y ago

USA unilateral sanctions of Iran are not only ilegal but inhumane and criminal.

dntbnmpls 7y ago
Many view sanctions as war crimes because sanctions, though they superficially target officials/companies/etc, are meant to undermine a nation's economy and hurt the civilian population to pressure foreign governments. Essentially the goal is to starve the men, women and children in order to punish foreign governments. If it was iran or china or russia doing it, we would be calling it a war crime or a crime against humanity. But since we are doing it, we just call it "economic warfare".
- throway1n 7y ago
  sure, let them develop an economy and build nukes / destabilise the region even more. if anything there is already a bad experience with saudi arabia, and we dont want a repeat. the people of iran if they dont support that murderous government should overthrow it. simple as.
  - deleted 7y ago
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    - throway1n 7y ago
      particularly the US. i hear democracy is bad and apparently the us is ebil for giving those people an opportunity to organise instead of terrorise. funny world we live in. where we now support dictators and call those who liberate “destabilisers”. but yeah the others are pretty toxic.

microcolonel 7y ago

I've seen speculation that the virus in Iran has mutated (or the environment is somehow different), and is producing extremely aggressive complications, killing patients within hours of their hospitalization. At this time of year, there will be even more mass face-kissing and hand-shaking going on than usual. There are entire communities of travelling super-spreaders in Iran right now, this is extremely serious.

pbourke 7y ago
Probably not. Most likely it's just become widespread there and they haven't been containing or testing. The deaths and serious cases are the tip of the iceberg.

83hajfjeijg 7y ago

lol hacker news is going full retard with this tinfoil shit. relax.