October 27, 2021

I had the opportunity to ask questions of a doctor currently practicing medicine in Iran and dealing with the COVID crisis there. The interview below has been edited for clarity and to protect the doctor’s identity.

Is the government being honest with the Iranian people about COVID in Iran?

First of all, I should inform you that I am Dr. [name withheld], a doctor from the city of [name withheld] in the province of Khorasan in eastern Iran, a supporter of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran and that I have twenty years of medical experience in this province.

In response to your question, I must say that after the Corona [i.e., COVID] pandemic, the field of health services of the Iranian people was handed over to the intelligence and security organizations of the regime, and they carefully manipulated the statistics regarding the mortality and the number of cases of the Corona patients. So, to understand the correct statistics we must rely on the knowledge of epidemiology.

The simplest way is to look at the mortality statistics of previous years. Comparing 2019 with 2020—that is, during the first year of the Corona epidemic—we find that the death number has increased by about 220,000 compared to the previous year. And in 2021, in the first half of the year, the death toll was 200,000. This means the mortality has increased compared to the first six months of the year 2020. That is, the daily death rate without the Corona epidemic was 1,100; during the first year after the epidemic, this number was close to 1,800 people; and, in the second year of the Corona, it reached 2,500 deaths. The daily death toll was due to the actual mortality statistics, which reveals the inaccurate official (government) mortality statistics. This deviation from reality is obvious. We call it engineering statistics by the government.

If not, does the physician have a sense of the real COVID death numbers in Iran?

Yes, the actual statistics of Corona mortality are reported by doctors and other medical professionals. That is why the ruling regime fired 1,400 famous Iranian doctors. Then, an IRGC doctor took over the management of the medical system, filtered the medical staff. and banned Iranian doctors from providing any information about Corona patients to news agencies.