4 ms·

This is government data that says 451,024 people tested positive and the figure they released was 278,827. Are you reading the same article?

• Traster 6y ago
  Okay, so let me lay out why I'm suspicious of those numbers in the context of the article. The paragraph before that states: >The number of deaths from coronavirus in Iran is nearly triple what Iran's government claims, a BBC Persian service investigation has found. The government's own records appear to show almost 42,000 people died with Covid-19 symptoms up to 20 July, versus 14,405 reported by its health ministry. Now those two things aren't the same - the number of deaths of people who could possibly have had coronavirus isn't the same thing as the number of deaths of people who were actually confirmed to have coronavirus. The first is a quite expansive definition which is what the BBC is using, and the second is the number the Iranian regime publishes. And that second definition is a perfectly reasonable thing to publish, it's what the UK publishes and reasonable people know that's likely to be an undercount. Now, given that the BBC is already comparing apples to oranges, comparing the suspected cause of death with confirmed. Let's look at the claim you're quoting. >The number of people known to be infected is also almost double official figures: 451,024 as opposed to 278,827. So what I'd want to see, before I took the second quote seriously, is a defintion of what the numbers refer to. Because if you read it in context, that sounds to me very much like it could be the BBC is doing exactly the same thing again, comparing the official figures which are the number of people actually tested confirmed cases, with the unofficial figures, which are simply people presenting with symptoms but not comfirmed. Testing capacity is a worldwide issue, but apparently with Iran we're going to try and literally tie this to the Iranian revolution.
  • tankenmate 6y ago
    But obviously there is a spectrum, some countries (like Belgium) have very little difference between their all cause mortality rate and their reported rates due to effects (not just direct) of the crisis. Other countries (and going by this report that would seem to include Iran) are heavily underreporting to the tune of 60%. And then obviously you have countries that are somewhat underreporting like the UK, where they have reported covid deaths of approximately 46 thousand, but excess deaths of 64 thousand giving an approximate underreporting in the order of 25+%. As to the revolution, it's not likely the cause as merely another example of a tightly controlled society that is sensitive to criticism; a reflection of their fear of "losing control". "Beware of him that would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
• pvaldes 6y ago
  > government data says 451,024 people tested positive... the figure they released was 278,827 I don't know if the data were faked and I assume that everybody is applying "creative accountability" here. Not only in Iran. Is a political thing. ... but this is not so strange as it seems. People can pass the test more than one time. As immunity is so short lived, each patient could test positive, then negative and then positive again, an "undefined" number of times. This should count as one patient, two events. I assume that each positive has a second try at least to assure that is not a false positive