On twitter, there are a few photos suggesting that in Iran people are collapsing in the streets. The semiofficial news agencies are reporting the death toll in Qom alone is 50, but the official toll stands at 12, out of 61 reported cases. Iranian officials deny that Qom’s death toll is 50, but admitted 900 suspected cases were being tested. Some of the deaths are reported to be doctors and some of the infected are officials suggesting the virus has been spreading for weeks and is underreported. For example: the Chancellor of Qom’s Medical Sciences University, Dr. Mohammad-Reza Ghadir, had tested positive.
If official stats are correct the death rate is 20%. It almost certainly isn’t, but either this virus is deadlier than ever, or Iranian officials are hiding a broader spread. Either way, every nation with high risk people (say, people over 60 years old) might consider suspending the flights til we know more. We would all probably be dealing with what Iran is right now if we had not closed flights to China weeks ago.
The infection from Iran has spread to six countries so far –– Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, Canada and Oman. But flights from China to Iran are apparently still open. Given the risk, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Oman, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Jordan, Ankara, Georgia and Tajikistan have stopped flights from Iran. Lebanon has reduced flights. However medical safety standards are lower in the USA, Australia, etc where it is fine for infected people to fly in without quarantine. Cheapest flights from Tehran to Melbourne are $761.
The US CDC says it’s OK to fly to and from Iran, though older people should “consider” postponing their trip. Travellers should stay away from sick people and use hand sanitizer etc. That’s Alert Level 2. They have raised the alert to level 3 for travel to South Korea. “Avoid non-essential travel” — but hey, go if you really want to. There is seemingly no warning on CDC Travel Notices that people traveling to these countries risk getting caught inside them if flights are stopped or internal borders shut. Will we do rescue flights in plastic wrapped planes?
Australian authorities say “reconsider your need to travel” and sternly warn “If you travel to Iran despite our advice, you will be screened for coronavirus (COVID-19) at airports. ” Which means someone will check your temperature, but not whether you have taken a panadol 2 hours ago and not whether you are an asymptomatic carrier.
Flights from Iran are already cartoonized on twitter:
Iranian flights already mocked in cartoons @BeholdIsrael
RadioFree Europe reports that Iran may be covering up infections
Apparently, Iranian health officials think quarantine is too old fashioned. For that reason alone we should stop all flights from Iran from entry.
Amirabadi-Farahani [Qom lawmaker, who spoke in Parliament] said Qom should be quarantined, while also suggesting that nurses and other health-care workers lacked the necessary protective gear to treat coronavirus patients.
[Deputy Health Minister Iraj] Harirchi told journalists that a quarantine in the holy city — where many senior ayatollahs and thousands of religious students are based — is unlikely to be efficient in controlling the spread of the disease that emerged in China in December.
“We do not agree with quarantining Qom; the practice of using a quarantine is pre-World War I for the plague and cholera and Chinese [officials] are also unhappy with the quarantines imposed [in their country],” Harirchi said.
The son of an 83-year-old woman who died in Qom over the weekend after being infected with the coronavirus told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that she died while in quarantine in a hospital.
He said doctors did not test him even though he had taken care of his mother before she was transferred to the hospital. “They asked me if I coughed and asked a few other questions,” the man, who identified himself as Reza, said. “Then they said, ‘You can go.'”
‘Recipe for a Massive Viral Outbreak’: Iran Emerges as a Worldwide Threat
David D. Kirkpatrick, Farnaz Fasshiki and Mujib Mashal, NY Times
Experts worry that few Middle Eastern countries are ready to respond effectively to the threat posed by the virus.
“How ready are these countries?” asked Dr. Montaser Bilbisi, an American-trained infectious disease specialist practicing in Amman, Jordan. “In all honesty, I have not seen the level of readiness that I have seen in China or elsewhere, and even some of the personal protective equipment is lacking.”
In Jordan, for example, he said that he had not yet seen a fully protective hazardous materials suit. “So health care workers would be at very high risk for infection.”
In Afghanistan, officials said the first confirmed case of the virus was a 35-year-old man from the western province of Herat who had recently traveled to Qom. Health officials declared a state of emergency in Herat. The government on Sunday had already suspended all air and ground travel to and from Iran.
But the border is difficult to seal. Thousands cross every week for religious pilgrimages, trade, jobs and study — about 30,000 in January alone, the International Organization of Migration, an intergovernmental agency, reported.
“In the past two weeks, more than a 1,000 people have visited or traveled to Qom from Herat, which means they come into closer contact with the virus,” the Afghan heath minister, Ferozuddin Feroz, said on Monday at a news conference in Kabul.