Apr 7, 2020

Iranian lawmakers convened Tuesday for the first time since Feb. 19, when the government officially acknowledged the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In the absence of powerful speaker Ali Larijani, who has contracted the disease, his deputy Masoud Pezeshkian presided over the session, repeatedly rebuking fellow parliamentarians for their failure to maintain the appropriate distance between each other.

Health Minister Saeed Namaki briefed the assembly on the pandemic, saying his ministry had known that the virus would ultimately “plague our country and people.” But he assured the nation that it will be under full control by May 20. Nearly half of the capacity of Iranian hospitals, according to Namaki, remains unused and not a single patient has been turned away so far.

Nonetheless, a deputy health minister told a virtual briefing in Tehran the same day that intensive care beds are now overwhelmed by the outbreak, contradicting President Hassan Rouhani, who has spoken of infrastructural preparedness for thousands more patients in critical condition.

Amid multiple estimates regarding the tremendous impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the Iranian economy, Rouhani has promised loans to help four million Iranian families to the tune of 10 to 20 million Iranian rials ($60 to $120), depending on family size. According to Iranian lawmaker Aziz Akbarian, the figure will do little to help average households.

At least 3,872 Iranians have died from the virus as the community of those infected has now grown beyond 62,000. In a grim estimate, a member of the country’s Committee to Combat Coronavirus put the figure way higher, saying up to half a million Iranians must have contracted the disease so far. Elsewhere, Ali Akbar Haghdoust, the chairman of the Health Ministry’s COVID-19 panel of epidemiologists spoke of a “definite” exponential jump in the coming days.