A data leak revealed today, Iran has been hiding the actual Covid Pandemic numbers since the spread of the virus in January. Iranian authorities showed numbers that are 3 times less than the actual.
The Iranian health ministry confirmed 14,405 deaths by July 2020 whereas the real numbers were around 42,000, reported by BBC. Even the infection rate was double the official numbers. Ironically, the first Covid death was reported one month after the actual event in January.
However, Western media had their doubts on Iran’s official Covid numbers before the data breach. Irregularities in the national and regional level data have been a matter of concern for many days.
Who Leaked the data?
BBC claimed that the source of the data leak was anonymous. The leaked data had all the major details like names, age, gender, time in the hospital, etc. Sources are quoting that they trying to “shed light on truth” regarding the Covid situation in Iran.
Any cover-up in the Pandemic statistics can be a part of a “political games,” they think. Unfortunately, the situation is getting worse in Iran day by day. A tweet from Reuters Iran showed the horrible picture of the country where one person is dying in every seven minutes.
Iran is Leading the Covid Patient Numbers in the Middle East
Iran is one of the worst-hit countries in the world in terms of the novel Coronavirus spread. From the beginning, Iran lacked the testing capacity required for a quicker response. So they started to undercount the actual numbers.
But Iran still dominates the Covid death race in the Middle East despite the reduced official data.
However, Iranian authorities successfully reduced the actual infection rate in the past by taking lockdown measures over the Nowruz holiday. But a second wave started to hit the country at late-May once the government relaxed the restrictions.
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