
Iran lawmaker says 50 dead from coronavirus in city of Qom - oska
https://apnews.com/32540d09ec101aac057660ef1b0aa970
======
gzer0
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-d...](https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-covid19-day-by-day-
symptoms-patients-2020-2)

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.

~~~
radicalbyte
There's a flu going around in The Netherlands right now, it progresses like
this:

\- Day 1: Fever, fatigue and muscle pain with a dry itchy cough.

\- Day 2+: Nausea and diarrhea can be experienced as well as the first day
symptoms.

It takes about a week for the worst of the symptoms to die down however the
stomach ache, cough and light tiredness last weeks.

My entire family and most of my son's class at school has had it and they're
all still recovering. My wife is, after 3 weeks, still really ill. Probably
because she's working full time and breastfeeding.

This is what makes the Corona-virus hard: at the start the symptoms are
extremely similar to existing flu. Unless the case is extremely severe most
people won't see a doctor let alone a hospital.

I don't see how it can be stopped.

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
> My wife is, after 3 weeks, still really ill. Probably because she's working
> full time

In my opinion it’s high time to call in sick. She is neither helping herself
nor her coworkers by going to work.

~~~
jlokier
If that's an option.

I lot of people cannot call in sick.

Being sick means being unpaid, and many people cannot afford to go unpaid.

~~~
skrause
> _Being sick means being unpaid, and many people cannot afford to go unpaid._

In Germany being sick means full payment by the employer for 6 weeks, after
that you'll receive around 90% of your last net income by your healh insurance
company for _72 weeks_ , after that slightly lower unemployment payments for
another 12 month. So around 2.5 years of being sick are required until you're
actually unpaid.

~~~
testvox
What is full payment if you are paid hourly?

~~~
skrause
You get paid as if you had worked the full amount of hours in your employment
contract.

Zero-hour contracts are illegal in Germany.

~~~
testvox
So yeah you lose out on pay if you were planning on working overtime.

------
oska
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/coronavir...](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)

------
jarmitage
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-2...](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-
coronavirus-2019/situation-reports)

~~~
hurricanetc
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
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
Then let's just fuck WHO, we can play tit for tat just as easily.

------
tiborsaas
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)

~~~
hurricanetc
We could have stopped it completely with total travel bans but the WHO advised
against it because it could be damaging to the world economy.

Why is the WHO concerned about the economy? Well I have no idea. And is this
virus going pandemic going to be more or less economically painful than the
travel bans might have been? My guess would be we will feel significantly more
pain from a pandemic.

~~~
WA
> "Why is the WHO concerned about the economy?"

Don't you see that this is always a tradeoff? If the economy tanks, people
lose their jobs, which could result in a lot more social unrest than if a
virus spreads around the world.

I think it's tough to contain a virus like that with such a long incubation
time. But the early efforts might have slowed the virus down somewhat at
first, giving us more time to develop vaccines.

~~~
hurricanetc
I find that argument fundamentally flawed. Travel bans are momentarily painful
and the unrest is localized. The world economy would feel the pain but most
nations would be spared.

Compare that to what might happen when this virus hits NYC. There will be a
run on cash and groceries. People will stop commuting. Schools will close.
Restaurants and shops will be empty. Now consider the same thing happening in
Seoul, Berlin, London, San Francisco, etc. The economic impacts from this
could be catastrophic.

And the most ironic thing is that if this truly does get out of hand we will
get travel bans. Nations will close their borders. People will willingly (and
forcefully) stop traveling via boat or air. We'll circle back to needing
travel bans and the only price we'll have paid is millions of lives and a
global economic catastrophe. All so that we could avoid some minor short term
economic pain.

------
Merrill
It seems odd that there are no cases reported in Laos, Myanmar, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, and Indonesia. [https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/coronaviruse/situati...](https://www.who.int/docs/default-
source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200223-sitrep-34-covid-19.pdf)

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
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
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-116...](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/20/cdc-
coronavirus-116529)

~~~
mantap
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.

~~~
swsieber
Yes, at that point several large clusters will appear within days because of
how fast it spreads.

------
tomalpha
> “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
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
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.

~~~
_-___________-_
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
> 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.

~~~
zaroth
See upthread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22403326](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22403326)

~~~
oefrha
I’ve seen that terrible argument with “closed figures” a couple of times now
but don’t really have the time or patience to write a long rebuttal.

That, and the fact that the post you responded to is comparing apples to
apples and does not rely on the validity of any one fatality rate estimation
methodology.

------
yyyk
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
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
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.

------
Keloo
The dashboard for monitoring the virus:

[https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6)

~~~
qiqitori
Here's a dashboard on the same site for Japan's prefectures:

[https://jagjapan.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.htm...](https://jagjapan.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/641eba7fef234a47880e1e1dc4de85ce)

------
hu3
> Health Ministry spokesman Iraj Harirchi rejected the Qom lawmaker’s claims,
> insisting the death toll from the virus remains at 12.

Who to trust?

~~~
jeltz
Neither of them. Both have plenty of motive to lie.

------
avindroth
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)

------
allovernow
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.

~~~
akie
> This virus is unprecedented

I think you need to read up on your history.

~~~
tome
If you have particularly useful historical information to hand then it would
probably better to share it rather than hint at its existence.

~~~
WJW
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.

~~~
jamesrcole
> _Everyone who had history in high school has historical information about
> this_

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.

~~~
saiya-jin
What kind of backwardish 3rd world country are you from that you never heard
in school terms like 'black death', 'spanish flu'?

Even if you didn't, I've noticed it in practically all possible media hundreds
of times in all possible topics.

~~~
jamesrcole
Regarding your second paragraph, I never said that I’d never heard the terms.
I said that they weren’t covered in high school history for me.

There’s so many topics that can be covered in high-school history classes, and
so little actual aggregate time for those classes - why would you expect those
topics be amongst them?

Also, why do you think that criticising such history classes, and the country
they're in, somehow negates the point i made?

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

~~~
dntbnmpls
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".

------
coconut_crab
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-
ec...](https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/10/29/maximum-pressure/us-economic-
sanctions-harm-iranians-right-health)

------
microcolonel
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
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.

------
RandomInteger4
Fucking hell, these politicians are as much a virus as the virus itself. 100%
that number was pulled straight from their hindquarters.

~~~
zabana
how do you know this ? Are you in IRAN can you confirm or infirm the figures ?

------
aaron695
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
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
> 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-
corona...](https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/02/23/619365/Iran-coronavirus-
outbreak-test-kits-sanctions)

~~~
senordevnyc
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.

