Revolutionary Guards personnel and a vehicle with the placard “Corona Suppression Operation”, Tehran, Iran, March 1, 2020
UPDATE, 1745 GMT:
A member of the Expediency Council, which advises the Supreme Leader and rules on conflicts between branches of Government, has died from Coronavirus.
State media reported the passing of Mohammad Mirmohammadi, 71.
The official toll has been raised to 66 dead and 1,501 cases, said Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have established a base to fight the spread of Coronavirus, using water-cannon trucks on the streets.
As the official number of cases spiked to almost 1,000 on Sunday, the Guards declared “all-out preparedness” to work with the Health Ministry for mobile hospitals and treatment centers, disinfection of cities, and distribution of hygiene supplies.
The military force puts its water-cannon vehicles — previously used for suppressing protests — on the streets of Iran’s capital Tehran to demonstrate its intent.
“The sons of the Iranian nation at the IRGC and Basij [paramilitary units] will remain ready and active on the scene of cooperation and assistance until the disease is fully defeated and the conditions are back to normal,” the Guards said in a statement.
Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour raised the number of confirmed cases to 978 from 593. He put the death toll at 54, with 170 patients “cured” and released from hospitals.
Critics say the toll is far higher, with the Ministry only prompted into regular statements after a conservative MP said on February 23 that 50 people had died in the holy city of Qom.
The Eghtesad Online site claimed on Sunday that at least 725 patients are in four hospitals in Qom.
Four MPs, Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, and Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi are among high-level Iranian officials and politicians who have tested positive for the virus.
See also Iran Daily, March 1: Regime Changes Line on Coronavirus — It’s Serious
With the Supreme Leader declaring that fear of Coronavirus was a “Western plot”, the Government had held out against quarantines. However, Tehran Friday Prayers were cancelled and educational and cultural facilities are closed as of Monday.
Fars, linked to the Revolutionary Guards, declared that public spaces in Tehran and other cities are now being regularly disinfected. It showed personnel spraying a shrine in Tehran Province.
Amid uncertainty about the extent of the virus, reports are circulating of public disquiet. Fararu News, a private Iranian site, posted video of people burning down a clinic in Bandar Abbas in southern Iran because they heard that it was treating patients.
Forty one years of islamic republic and this is what it has come to, see the video
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-hospitals-ordered-to-prepare-for-more-coronavirus-cases-not-admit-non-emergency-patients/30462525.html
““The sons of the Iranian nation at the IRGC and Basij [paramilitary units] will remain ready and active on the scene of cooperation and assistance until the disease is fully defeated and the conditions are back to normal,” the Guards said in a statement.”
I have lived long enough and seen plenty of antics from these murderers that nothing surprises me. This show of military asset in the streets to fight off a virus can be read as desperate act and lack of any understanding of state of affairs, or to show of force in case the virus spread causing any unrest….