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AP – At the start, Iranian officials downplayed COVID-19 — denying the mounting toll of infections, refusing to close mosques, making half-hearted gestures at locking down businesses.
That was then. This is now: Even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has worn disposable gloves while planting a tree for state media, and he prayed in an empty mosque to mark the holy Shiite commemoration of Ashoura.
The coronavirus pandemic has only grown worse in Iran in the course of the year, threatening everyone from the day laborer on the street to the upper reaches of the Islamic Republic. Now the virus has sickened and killed top officials, becoming perhaps Iran’s greatest threat since the turmoil and war that followed its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
A firefighter disinfects a mosque to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus in northern Tehran, Iran, Friday, March, 6, 2020. A Health Ministry spokesman warned authorities could use unspecified “force” to halt travel between major cities. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
The body of a person who died from COVID-19 is interred as mourners look on, at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Medical workers pour tea for a patient infected with the new coronavirus at a hospital in Tehran, Iran, March 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Mohammad Ghadamali)
Crushed by U.S. sanctions, Iran has avoided the full lockdowns seen in other countries as it struggles to keep its anemic economy alive. Those who must work each day to eat — whether from the sweat of construction or driving a taxi through Tehran’s clogged streets — do not have the luxury of being able to stay at home.
Even efforts aimed at limiting some travel have been met with chaos, with online videos repeatedly showing drivers ignoring police to speed off to the Caspian Sea for long weekends. Efforts to close shrines saw hard-liners push their way into two in March.
A cemetery worker prepares the body of a man who died from COVID-19, in a morgue at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of the Iranian capital, Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A cemetery worker prepares the body of a man who died from COVID-19, in a morgue at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of the Iranian capital, Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A cemetery worker prepares new graves at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of the Iranian capital, Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
And the toll just keeps rising, say the officials at Tehran’s massive Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, already the final resting place of some 1.6 million people.
“All of the crises that we have experienced at this cemetery over the past 50 years of its history have lasted for just a few days or a week at most,” manager Saeed Khaal said. Never before — not during earthquakes or even the country’s 1980s war with Iraq — has the pace of bodies flowing into Behesht-e-Zahra been so high for so long, he said.
The spread of the virus in February came as Iran held a parliamentary election in which officials sought to boost turnout as a sign of support in the government. The country also marked the 41st anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution with robust demonstrations. Those mass events likely fueled the virus’ spread.
Iran has asked the International Monetary Fund for $5 billion, potentially its first-such loan since 1962, though that has not yet been granted amid the U.S. pressure campaign that began after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Those sanctions, while allowing for humanitarian aid, have crushed Iran’s rial currency and made international purchases of medicine and equipment much more difficult.
A pedestrian crosses an empty street in Tehran, Iran, on Tuesday, March 24, 2020, with a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at right. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
People wearing protective clothing attend the funeral of a victim who died from the new coronavirus, at a cemetery in the outskirts of the city of Ghaemshahr in north of Iran, Friday, May 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Meanwhile, Iran’s own response has been hampered in part by mixed messages as the crisis worsened in the fall. The country requested aid from the international community, then revoked an offer allowing Doctors Without Borders to work in Isfahan. Khamenei also refused U.S. aid, citing a baseless conspiracy theory claiming the virus could be man-made by America.BACK TO THE PANDEMIC ATLAS
In October, Health Minister Saeed Namaki warned of “hospitals full of patients,” but then the next day reportedly said: “We should never announce that we don’t have empty beds. We do have empty beds.” Authorities ordered face masks to be worn, then set the cash fine at just 500,000 rials, or $1.60. All as Iran hit ever-increasing records for its reported daily deaths and case counts — numbers long suspected of being below the true toll of the pandemic.
Worshippers wearing protective face masks offer Eid al-Fitr prayers outside a shrine to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 24, 2020. Muslims worldwide celebrated one of their biggest holidays under the long shadow of the coronavirus, with millions confined to their homes and others gripped by economic concerns during what is usually a festive time of shopping and celebration. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
People have lunch in a shopping center at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran on Wednesday, June 10, 2020. As businesses re-open and people begin to move around more, health experts fear a growing complacency among Iran’s 80 million people may further allow the virus to spread. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Women clerics wearing protective clothing and “chador,” a head-to-toe garment, arrive at a cemetery to prepare the body of a person who died from COVID-19 for a funeral, in Ghaemshahr, Iran, on April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
By mid-December, Iran had reported over 1,300 cases per 100,000 population.
What awaits Iran in winter remains in question.
Nearly half of the country’s recorded coronavirus deaths have come from Tehran. Authorities in November proposed a monthlong nightly business curfew in the capital and 30 other major cities and towns, asking nonessential shops to keep their workers home.
But whether that will have an effect remains in question. The streets were far from empty, and there was no noticeable police presence to enforce the curfew.
Mohammad Maleklee, 23, of the National Orchestra of Iran and Tehran Symphony, plays saxophone from his window, during mandatory self-isolation due to the new coronavirus disease outbreak, in Tehran, Iran on Wednesday, April 8, 2020 photo. With performance halls closed, musicians find performance spaces wherever they can. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A technician sprays disinfectant as mourners pray over the body of a person who died from COVID-19, at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of the Iranian capital, Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. Behesht-e-Zahra, or “Zahra’s Paradise” in Farsi, was named after a daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Volunteers wearing face masks to curb the spread of the new coronavirus sew new masks as a man plays guitar for them at the Hafez theater hall in downtown Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, April 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Mourners attend the funeral of a person who died from COVID-19 at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery just outside Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A member of the Iranian army walks past rows of beds at a temporary 2,000-bed hospital for coronavirus patients set up by the army at the international exhibition center in northern Tehran, Iran, on March 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
Mourners carry the body of a person who died from COVID-19 at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
A girl wearing a protective face mask to help prevent spread of the coronavirus holds her doll as she attends a mourning ceremony to commemorate the 7th century death of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, one of Shiite Islam’s most beloved saints, who was killed in a battle in Karbala in present-day Iraq, at the Tehran University Musalla, Iran, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
