Covid,surges across Middle East.....

CNN: Coronavirus surges across Middle East and North Africa, in nations both rich and poor.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/17/middleeast/coronavirus-middle-east-surge-intl/index.html

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖

Marcus Aurelius

"BBC Live News" wrote:

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has said 25 million Iranians have already been infected by coronavirus and another 35 million are at risk.

Basing his statistics on a health ministry report, he warned the country would need twice as many beds. Until now, the official number of infections was 269,440.

Rouhani said: “If today we base ourselves on this report, which says that 25 million of the population in our country have been infected and that presumably the rest of our population, about 30 to 35 million more will contract it in the coming months, the same report predicts that the number of those hospitalised in the coming months is expected to be double the number we have seen in the past 150 days.”

Rouhani said about 14,000 people had died from the virus and 200,000 had been admitted to hospital in the past 150 days, according to the report.

Also official death rates may be low.

"BBC Live News" wrote:

Iran has recorded around 20,000 more deaths this spring than previous years, according to government figures.

Iran's National Organisation for Civil Registration recorded 110,384 deaths in the spring - based on the Iranian calendar year from 20 March to 20 June - the ISNA news agency reports.

The deaths recorded in the spring of the preceding three years were 93,067, 90,214 and 91,742 respectively.

[...]

When a high official springs news that is this bad (and 100 times the Official Figures for cases), it probably means that the situation is so bad that politically they can no longer get away with the low figures that have been publishing.

The reported number of deaths is no so out of line ("only" 30% too low), but if the 20 000 excess deaths were all counted as Corvid-19 related then Iran would have a similar mortality rate to Panama or Mexico.

We will have to wait to see if the Offical reports reflect what the President said or not. Or, if they are at testing capacity so official "lab confirmed" reports fall far far short of reality.