A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom from the new coronavirus this month, a lawmaker was quoted as saying on Monday, even as the Health Ministry insisted only 12 deaths have been recorded nationwide.Rumor has it that the Qom representative then left the parliament feeling ill and the staff sterilized his chair.
The new death toll reported by the Qom representative, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, is significantly higher than the 47 total cases of infections state TV had reported just hours earlier. Iran’s health ministry now says total infections have risen to 61, but a spokesman said deaths remained at 12.
Still, questions of transparency are being raised as the number of deaths compared to the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.
It's tough to top that one, but the WHO is trying; Reuters reports they no longer use the classification "pandemic". In other words, no pandemic for you!
In less laughable news, Italy reports 38 new cases, for a total of 223 cases with 7 deaths. (Some reports have 229 with 6 deaths.) South Korea is at 833 cases with 8 deaths.
In Germ Boat #2 news, a third passenger of the Diamond Princess died yesterday (an 80-year-old Japanese man), and the case count has risen to 691, apparently due at least in part to ongoing testing of the largely Filipino crew, though some ex-plague-ship cases that have been popping up post-evac may also have been counted.
The JHU CSSE app seems to be struggling under the load of cases today, so I've added another source of COVID-19 numbers the sidebar, BNO News.
P.S. A 900-point plunge in Dow futures has been attributed to coronavirus fears.
P.P.S. The worldwide case count has exceeded 80,000.
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