Iran has handled coronavirus better than ‘many’ other countries, says Larijani

Iran has handled the coronavirus better than “many other countries,” Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani claimed on Thursday.

As of Thursday, 2,234 in Iran have died from coronavirus, and there are 29,406 confirmed cases.

“Thanks to the measures taken by the health ministry and the armed forces, Iran is ahead of many countries in the world in the fight against coronavirus,” Larijani was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

Despite how developed they are, the US and European countries find themselves in a difficult predicament due to coronavirus, he said.

“When we check the news from these countries, we see how panicked they are in the fight against coronavirus,” said Larijani.

His remarks come as the Iranian regime has been accused of mishandling its response to the coronavirus outbreak in the country, including deliberately covering up details of the outbreak to maximize turnout in parliamentary elections.

Documents obtained by an Iranian exile-run news site show that a senior Iranian official instructed authorities to only implement public health measures after the elections on February 21. In contrast, the regime has insisted it acted as soon as it became aware of the problem.

According to The Associated Press, the days in which the regime denied the presence of the virus allowed it to spread, as the regime prioritized the legitimacy it sought from elections over public health.