The average of these estimates is about 2 million, which is about 250 times the official number and 15 times the total cases acknowledged worldwide. According to models, Tuite told me, the point-prevalence of COVID-19 in Canada could rise to 5 to 10 percent of the total population when the epidemic reaches its peak. These numbers, which I have shown to experts, suggest that Iran might be at or near that point.

Does Iran really have 2 million citizens with COVID-19? Perhaps politicians spend more time in public, and are therefore more susceptible to infection; if so, some of the estimates above would overstate the number of cases. Then again, it’s also possible that they were aware of the epidemic earlier and took precautions. In that case, those estimates would understate the number of cases. Edward Kaplan, who studies epidemics at Yale, looked at my numbers and noted that many of Iran’s politicians are old men—the average age of senior advisory council members is 70—who are therefore especially likely to show symptoms of COVID-19, leading to a higher share of sufferers in political circles than in the general population. It’s also possible—perhaps likely—that these numbers over-sample for Tehran and Qom, both cities hammered by the epidemic. COVID-19 is in every Iranian province, but some provinces are earlier in their cycle than others.

Many similar unknowns make these estimates difficult to assess—which is why experts have to attack the problem from multiple angles, with the assumption that errors in one approach do not correlate to errors in the others, and get rounded out in the average. Even if the estimates are off by a lot, they still reveal an outbreak completely out of control, beyond the capacity of Iran or perhaps any country to manage.

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The messages coming out of Iran on social media, especially from health-care workers, do little to convince me that my doomsday figures are inaccurate. David N. Fisman, a colleague of Tuite’s at the University of Toronto, notes that the virus reportedly spread after panicked residents of Qom and Tehran fled to smaller cities, thereby sowing COVID-19 all over the country. Circulating on social media are reports that some provinces, such as Mazandaran, have set up roadblocks to keep more people with the infection from spilling into their territory.

The situation the doctors describe is desperate, with nurses wrapping themselves in tablecloths because they have long since run through their supply of proper gear. They swear that the official numbers are wrong. “Just stay overnight in the hospital to find out what I'm talking about,” one wrote. Or if you want to live, go home, and don’t come out until the plague passes. “[Our] society now needs fear more than hope.”