Five former/current political officials have died, and the man heading the iranian government’s response to the COVID-19 has contracted the virus himself.
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A former Iranian lawmaker became the latest and fifth high-profile death resulting from the country’s coronavirus outbreak this Monday morning.
Mohammad-Reza Rahchamani, 64, a reformist politician and founding member of Iran’s Solidarity Party, died from the virus in Tehran.
Rahchamani became at least the fifth high-profile casualty of the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, where over 7,000 infections have been reported and 237 deaths confirmed.
Real death toll higher
Critics of the regime continue to claim that the real death toll is much higher than is being reported.
Some speaking at a private conference in Sweden put the real death toll at over 2,000.
Iran’s coronavirus death toll is still much lower than China’s 3000, but it has suffered many more high-profile deaths than any other country:
- Mohammad-Reza Rahchamani, 64, a reformist politician and founding member of Iran’s Solidarity Party died Monday.
- Farzad Tazari, the former deputy of the highly influential Revolutionary Guard Corp’s political department, died Monday.
- Fatemeh Rahbar, 55, a conservative lawmaker from the capital Tehran who was elected to Iran’s Parliament for the first time just last month, died on Saturday.
- Hossein Sheikholeslam, 68, a former deputy foreign minister who took part in the 1979 U.S. embassy hostage crisis, died on Friday.
- Mohammad Mirmohammadi, 71, a close adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died last Tuesday.
Who else is sick
- Meanwhile, the person heading the Iranian government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak has also contracted the virus.
- 23 MPs have also tested positive for the virus, including a number of vice presidents and advisers to Khamenei, as well as Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi.
What Now
Iran has belatedly attempted to control the outbreak by closing schools and universities, suspending major cultural and sporting events and reducing working hours across the country to slow the contagion, which has now spread to all of its 31 provinces.
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