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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIran coronavirus response: This is what happens when you make health policy subservient to politics.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/06/opinion/coronavirus-iran.html
How Iran Completely and Utterly Botched its Response to the Coronavirus
We were doctors in the Iranian health system for years. This is what happens when you make health policy subservient to politics.
By Kamiar Alaei and Arash Alaei
Kamiar and Arash Alaei are Iranian health-policy experts and co-presidents of the Institute for International Health and Education in Albany, N.Y.
March 6, 2020, 8:14 a.m. ET
<snip>
The first mention by the Iranian government of the diseases arrival in the country was a report of two deaths in Qum on Feb. 19. The first victim is believed to be an Iranian businessman who had traveled to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus was first detected. A doctor in Qum is believed to be the second Iranian victim. They are feared to have been sick and infecting others, from their family members to friends and colleagues, for weeks before their deaths.
The contagion spread to all of Irans 31 provinces. Pilgrims from several countries who had visited Qum were found to be infected. On Feb. 24, officials from the health ministry announced that there were 64 cases in the country and that 12 people had died from the outbreak. Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, a member of Parliament from Qum, contradicted the official accounts and told an Iranian news agency that 50 people in the city were already dead.
The official response was glaring denial of the magnitude of the crisis. Iraj Harirchi, the deputy minister of health, denied Mr. Farahanis allegation and promised to resign if the death toll proved to be even one fourth of his claim. A day later, Mr. Harirchi himself tested positive for the coronavirus, and is under quarantine.
By that time, the fourth week of February, it became evident that a disproportionate number of members of Parliament and senior government officials were infected. Iranian politicians and officials travel frequently between Tehran and Qum, and it is most likely that one of them contracted the virus in Qum and infected colleagues in Tehran, where the newly elected Parliament was in session.
Iranians have a culture of greeting each other by kissing the other person on the cheeks. Politicians often overdo it to show their closeness to power players. In this particular moment, the greeting could have transmitted the virus.
We learned of the officials being infected early on because Tehran made the welfare of the elite a priority and moved them to the front of the line for testing.
</snip>
How Iran Completely and Utterly Botched its Response to the Coronavirus
We were doctors in the Iranian health system for years. This is what happens when you make health policy subservient to politics.
By Kamiar Alaei and Arash Alaei
Kamiar and Arash Alaei are Iranian health-policy experts and co-presidents of the Institute for International Health and Education in Albany, N.Y.
March 6, 2020, 8:14 a.m. ET
<snip>
The first mention by the Iranian government of the diseases arrival in the country was a report of two deaths in Qum on Feb. 19. The first victim is believed to be an Iranian businessman who had traveled to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus was first detected. A doctor in Qum is believed to be the second Iranian victim. They are feared to have been sick and infecting others, from their family members to friends and colleagues, for weeks before their deaths.
The contagion spread to all of Irans 31 provinces. Pilgrims from several countries who had visited Qum were found to be infected. On Feb. 24, officials from the health ministry announced that there were 64 cases in the country and that 12 people had died from the outbreak. Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, a member of Parliament from Qum, contradicted the official accounts and told an Iranian news agency that 50 people in the city were already dead.
The official response was glaring denial of the magnitude of the crisis. Iraj Harirchi, the deputy minister of health, denied Mr. Farahanis allegation and promised to resign if the death toll proved to be even one fourth of his claim. A day later, Mr. Harirchi himself tested positive for the coronavirus, and is under quarantine.
By that time, the fourth week of February, it became evident that a disproportionate number of members of Parliament and senior government officials were infected. Iranian politicians and officials travel frequently between Tehran and Qum, and it is most likely that one of them contracted the virus in Qum and infected colleagues in Tehran, where the newly elected Parliament was in session.
Iranians have a culture of greeting each other by kissing the other person on the cheeks. Politicians often overdo it to show their closeness to power players. In this particular moment, the greeting could have transmitted the virus.
We learned of the officials being infected early on because Tehran made the welfare of the elite a priority and moved them to the front of the line for testing.
</snip>
A cautionary tale for the US (and its tepid-to-nonexistent response).
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Iran coronavirus response: This is what happens when you make health policy subservient to politics. (Original Post)
Dennis Donovan
Mar 2020
OP
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)1. I worry this is the direction the US is headed in, down to
the infection of government officials...I hope I am wrong.
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)2. Trump's attending a fundraiser later today
🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)3. Indeed.🤞🤞🤞
OhNo-Really
(3,985 posts)4. Worth repeating
We learned of the officials being infected early on because Tehran made the welfare of the elite a priority and moved them to the front of the line for
Will Trump loyalty tests determine which states get tests?
No one would be surprised if sanctuary cities were low priority!
When Trump once said Im very familiar with Indonesian history the hair on my arms stood straight up!
Trumps not very familiar with much history.
Pobeka
(4,999 posts)5. Read the WHO report on China.
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
Some excerpts from page 19:
[Chinas uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures to contain
transmission of the COVID-19 virus in multiple settings provides vital lessons for the
global response. This rather unique and unprecedented public health response in
China reversed the escalating cases in both Hubei, where there has been widespread
community transmission, and in the importation provinces, where family clusters
appear to have driven the outbreak.
Much of the global community is not yet ready, in mindset and materially, to
implement the measures that have been employed to contain COVID-19 in China.
These are the only measures that are currently proven to interrupt or minimize
transmission chains in humans. Fundamental to these measures is extremely
proactive surveillance to immediately detect cases, very rapid diagnosis and
immediate case isolation, rigorous tracking and quarantine of close contacts, and an
exceptionally high degree of population understanding and acceptance of these
measures.
(emphasis mine).
The U.S. is totally screwing this up. I think there is virtually no chance we don't have a runaway situation in this country already. Our politics, our flawed education system has created a culture that put us at the highest risk for the worst case scenario.
Some excerpts from page 19:
[Chinas uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures to contain
transmission of the COVID-19 virus in multiple settings provides vital lessons for the
global response. This rather unique and unprecedented public health response in
China reversed the escalating cases in both Hubei, where there has been widespread
community transmission, and in the importation provinces, where family clusters
appear to have driven the outbreak.
Much of the global community is not yet ready, in mindset and materially, to
implement the measures that have been employed to contain COVID-19 in China.
These are the only measures that are currently proven to interrupt or minimize
transmission chains in humans. Fundamental to these measures is extremely
proactive surveillance to immediately detect cases, very rapid diagnosis and
immediate case isolation, rigorous tracking and quarantine of close contacts, and an
exceptionally high degree of population understanding and acceptance of these
measures.
(emphasis mine).
The U.S. is totally screwing this up. I think there is virtually no chance we don't have a runaway situation in this country already. Our politics, our flawed education system has created a culture that put us at the highest risk for the worst case scenario.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)6. +1, Trump fires pandemic response team then slow walks testing ... this looks like its on purpose
itcfish
(1,828 posts)7. They Don't Kiss
Once upon greeting each other, they kiss at least 3 times LOL. I am married to an Iranian and that is typical greeting men with men.