The Iranian regime is not having a good year.

In January, the IRGC and military tried to cover up the accidental 'shoot-down' of a Ukrainian passenger plane packed with young Iranian students. In February, it tried to cover up an outbreak of the coronavirus, and inadvertently allowed several senior health officials to become infected, including a deputy health official who appeared on Iranian TV looking like he was about to drop dead.

He was later confirmed to have the virus. We covered this extensively yesterday.

On a scale from 1 to Your Government Is Absolutely Not Up To The Task, the deputy health minister literally appearing at a coronavirus press conference in a fever sweat, because he has coronavirus, ranks right up there https://t.co/dlvO45LurJ — Tom Gara (@tomgara) February 25, 2020

Following rumors that the Ayatollah himself may have been exposed to the virus, President Rouhani appeared on TV to accuse the US on Wednesday of inciting "fear" in Iran over the deadly outbreak.

Sorry, Mr. President, but we suspect your government's botched response is really to blame.

According to i24 News, Coronavirus has killed 19 Iranians among 139 confirmed to be infected, as one lawmaker claimed that the true death toll was much higher.

"We shouldn't let America mount a new virus on top of coronavirus that is called...extreme fear," Rouhani told a weekly cabinet meeting, a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Iran of suppressing information about the outbreak.

Rouhani also dipped into conspiracy theory, accusing the US of covering up the outbreak by labeling thousands of cases as the common flu.

The Americans "themselves are struggling with coronavirus. Sixteen thousand people have died of influenza there but they don't talk about their own (dead)," Rouhani said.

Iranian authorities have closed schools, universities, cultural centers, sporting events and deployed teams of sanitary workers to disinfect buses, trains and public spaces as the outbreak unleashes a full-blown hysteria.

However, something tells us their approach to containing the virus hasn't been as effective as they had expected.