Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that nearly 100 times more people have been infected with the coronavirus than his government previously reported.
“A report from the research department of the health ministry has assessed that 25 million Iranians have been infected with the disease so far,” Rouhani announced on Saturday, according to state-sponsored Fars News. He also posited that hospitalizations will be “twice as many as we have seen in the last 150 days.”
The concession is shocking given the deviation from Iran’s official count, which claims only some 271,000 people have been infected and nearly 14,000 have died. The remarks by Rouhani come after experts cast doubt on the regime’s reporting. An Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said it has tallied more than 70,000 deaths in the country of 81 million.
Rouhani also said Saturday that 30 to 35 million people are still at risk of contracting the virus in the coming months.
Iran has resisted implementing a full lockdown as the number of cases kept climbing, although it has banned large public gatherings, has required masks in public, and has closed down schools.
Worldwide, there have been more than 14 million confirmed cases of the respiratory illness and nearly 600,000 deaths.
