An adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has become the first senior Iranian official to be killed by coronavirus after he died at a Tehran hospital today.
Mohammad Mirmohammadi, a member of the Expediency Council which is hand-picked by the Supreme Leader, died aged 71 after falling sick with the virus.
He is one of several regime members to have caught the virus, after vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar – known in the West for her role as ‘Sister Mary’ in the 1979 hostage crisis – and visibly struggling health minister Iraj Harirchi were also infected.
It comes as the Iranian regime was accused of ‘endangering the lives of Iranians and the world’ after alarming videos of worshippers licking a shrine emerged online.
There are also fears that Iran is covering up the true scale of the crisis, with official figures showing a suspiciously high death rate – suggesting there may be far more infections than the regime is willing to admit.
One opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), has claimed that the death toll is as high as 650 – more than ten times the official count of 54.
Mohammad Mirmohammadi (pictured left), a member of the Expediency Council which is hand-picked by the Supreme Leader of Iran, died aged 71 after falling sick with coronavirus. In this picture he is seated alongside two other officials, including Ali Akbar Velayti (centre)
Mohammad Mirmohammadi sat on a council which advises Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (pictured in Tehran last week)
State media announced Mirmohammadi’s death this morning in the virus’s most direct blow to the regime so far.
The Expediency Council which he sat on advises the Ayatollah and helps to settle disputes between the Supreme Leader and the Iranian parliament.
Iran has officially announced 978 cases and 54 deaths. But the resulting death rate of 5.5 per cent is much higher than the global two per cent, sparking concern that there may in fact be far more infections than that.
The opposition NCRI, which is exiled in Paris and fiercely opposed to the regime, claims that the death toll is now as high as 650, citing its own figures.
Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the group, claimed that the death toll included 150 fatalities in the capital Tehran and a similar number in the holy city of Qom.
Journalist Masih Alinejad, who tweeted the worrying clips of people licking the shrine in Qom, said that by keeping the religious sites open the regime was ‘endangering the lives of Iranians and the world’.
Footage shows people licking the doors and burial mound inside the Fatima Masumeh shrine in Qom, a common practice which has continued despite token warnings from the health ministry.
Worshippers in the videos brazenly state they ‘don’t care what happens’, even if they catch or spread the infection which has killed at least 54 in the country.
Iran’s hardline clerical establishment has refused to shut down Qom despite the holy city suffering the brunt of the outbreak and pilgrims spreading the virus across the Middle East.
One person who kisses the shrine in the holy Shi’ite city demands people ‘stop scaring people [about] coronavirus’. A child is even hailed for licking the doors.
The shrine, which has remained open and is disinfected daily, attracts Shi’ites from across Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Bahrain and other countries.
Separately, police have arrested one man who posted a video of himself licking the metal enclosing the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, according to reports by semi-official news agencies.
In the video, the man said he licked the metal to ‘allow others to visit the shrine with peace of mind.’
Worshippers in the videos brazenly state they ‘don’t care what happens’, (left) even if they catch or spread the infection which has killed at least 54 in the country. A child is even hailed for licking the doors (right)
Several of Iran’s neighbours have closed their borders and banned flights from Iran due to fears over the virus, which could further hurt Iran’s already fragile economy.
Kuwait and Bahrain have around 50 virus cases each, with 21 in the United Arab Emirates, 19 in Iraq, six in Oman, three in Qatar and one in Afghanistan.
Iran has the world’s second highest virus death toll outside mainland China, and ministers in Tehran have stepped up efforts to prevent the spread.
The country is battling medical shortages which are worsened by U.S. sanctions, with masks and testing kits in short supply.
Officials say Iran is preparing for the possibility of ‘tens of thousands’ of people getting tested for coronavirus as the number of confirmed cases spikes.
Every day trucks filled with disinfectants spray down streets, shrines, public parks, trash bins, public toilets and markets in Qom, Tehran and other areas that have had cases of infection.
State TV showed workers wiping down metro and bus stations.
‘The smell of disinfectants has become my nightmare,’ said retired teacher Ziba Rezaie, 62, from Qom. ‘The city smells like a cemetery, a morgue.’
The head of the World Health Organisation’s emergencies programme, Mike Ryan, said Iran may be dealing with an outbreak that is worse than yet understood.
Clips on social media have shown people licking the doors and the burial mound inside the Masumeh shrine
Iranian officials, including President Hassan Rouhani, have repeatedly dismissed concerns raised by many Iranians over the handling of the outbreak, saying all the necessary measures to overcome the crisis have been taken.
Some doctors and nurses said hospitals in Tehran, Qom and Rasht city were overloaded.
‘Hospitals are full of infected people. We hear about hundreds of deaths,’ said a doctor in Tehran, who asked not to be named. ‘We need more hospitals. The death toll will rise.’
The Health Ministry has ordered hospitals to admit only infected people and those patients who need immediate care. Dozens of military-run hospitals have been allocated to treat the infected people.
Iran’s claims to have the virus under control lost further credibility last week when the deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, was taken into quarantine.
Just a day earlier, the minister had looked unwell and sweated heavily at a press conference where he insisted that the outbreak was not as bad as feared.
Iran’s claims to have the virus under control lost further credibility last week when the deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, was taken into quarantine, just a day after sweating profusely at a press conference (pictured)
In a subsequent video, Haririchi confirmed he had been infected with the virus and had quarantined himself at home.
Another high-profile patient is vice president Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known in the West as ‘Sister Mary,’ the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis.
Further fears were raised when a lawmaker claimed that 50 people had died from the illness in the city of Qom alone. Harirchi, the health minister who has since been diagnosed with the virus, denied this.
Farahani said the 50 deaths in Qom date back to February 13, whereas Iran first officially reported cases of the virus on February 19.
He also claimed that 250 people had been quarantined in the city, which is around 75 miles south of Tehran.
‘None of the nurses have access to proper protective gears,’ Farahani said, adding that some health care specialists had left the city.
‘So far, I have not seen any particular action to confront corona by the administration.’
Iran faced anger from its own citizens over an attempted cover-up just last month, after claiming falsely that a passenger jet with dozens of Iranians on board had crashed by accident.
The plane was actually shot down by Iranian Revolutionary Guards at the height of Tehran’s stand-off with Washington after the death of Qassem Soleimani.