Iran is taking unprecedented measures to cull the spread of the coronavirus outbreak ravaging the country.
Top regime officials announced Friday that armed forces would be clearing streets and shops across the country of people. The government also claimed that all of its 80 million residents would be checked for COVID-19 in a nationwide crackdown, according to the Times of Israel.
Armed forces chief of staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri led a Friday meeting that was attended by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Hossein Salami and Gholamreza Soleimani, who leads the Basij, which is an IRGC-controlled domestic paramilitary group.
After the meeting, Bagheri appeared on camera and said he was tasked with the “emptying of shops, streets, and roads” in the next 24 hours.
“During the next 10 days, the entire Iranian nation will be monitored once through cyberspace, by phone, and, if necessary, in person, and those suspected of being ill will be fully identified,” he claimed, although it is unclear how far the announced measures will go.
The Iranian Health Ministry claimed on Friday that there have been more than 11,300 cases of the virus and 514 deaths in the country, although that number has been disputed, with some academics asserting that there could be thousands more cases. The National Council of Resistance of Iran, a dissident group working to overthrow the regime, claims to have tallied thousands of deaths in cities across the country.
A number of prominent Iranian political figures have also been sickened by the contagion.
Iran’s first vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, contracted the COVID-19 virus on Wednesday, the most senior Iranian official yet to have tested positive. The coronavirus killed a top adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and another vice president, Masoumeh Ebtekar, also tested positive along with Iranian Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi.
The World Health Organization recently declared the outbreak a global pandemic.
