Member-only story
In search of the murder: Making sense of Iran’s reported deaths
Mahan Ghafari and Kaveh Madani
Iran had an unusual rate of death in fall 2019 before the COVID-19 outbreak.
Iran was among the first countries to report COVID-19 infections. With 97 exported cases to 11 countries by Feb 28, it has since been the epicentre of the outbreak in the Middle East. The country has been widely accused by the media and general public for underreporting and manipulating its COVID-19 records.
Underdetection and the resulting underreporting of COVID-19 cases due to limited testing capacity is a major barrier to the effective management of the Coronavirus crisis around the world. Iran is no exception and the lack of testing capacity has limited the country’s ability to monitor and detect active COVID-19 cases, especially for those with no or mild symptoms. Like in many other countries, the true number of active and recovered cases in Iran is believed to be many times bigger than the reported numbers.
How about the death records?
Because of all the complications with testing active cases, experts have tried to gauge the burden of the outbreak using death records. Their general assumption is that the reported COVID-19 death data are reliable as most countries are capable of effectively tracking the COVID-19-driven deaths. Yet, the story is different when it comes to Iran.
The validity of Iran’s death records have been also put into question. In early March, Iran’s COVID-19 national emergency response committee decided to stop the release of deaths data registered by the National Organization for Civil Registration (NOCR). This decision raised further suspicions that Iran is trying to hide the truth.
No one knows what the truth is but curious minds still try to explore what has been happening in Iran. In the absence of reliable data, studies focusing on the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran have to rely on major assumptions and speculations. That is why some of their findings are sometimes significantly different. At the end of the day, it is impossible, at least at this point in history, to verify which study is providing the best estimation of reality.
