Mohsen Mansouri, the former vice president of the Iranian regime under Ebrahim Raisi, said that by the end of Hassan Rouhani’s administration, the COVID-19 pandemic had claimed the lives of nearly 700,000 people in Iran. This comes while the Iranian regime officially reported only about 140,000 deaths during the pandemic.
From the very beginning of global COVID-19 vaccinations, the Iranian regime delayed the vaccination rollout in Iran under the pretext of producing domestic vaccines, but government-affiliated companies failed to meet their commitments in this regard.
Additionally, a directive from Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Iranian regime, banning the import of American, British, and French vaccines, faced widespread protests.
While the regime restricted the import of COVID-19 vaccines approved by the international community, it distributed vaccines that were not widely recognized or approved by other countries, creating problems for Iranians traveling abroad.
In mid-February 2020, after the death of two patients with respiratory complications at Kamkar-Arabnia Hospital in Qom, rumors emerged that they had died from COVID-19. However, Qom University of Medical Sciences denied the rumors and announced that no diagnostic evidence of COVID-19 had been observed in the deceased patients.
Subsequently, then-health minister Saeed Namaki stated that two patients whose lung fluid samples had been taken on February 17, 2020, tested positive on February 19. He said the news was announced publicly within 45 minutes.
On September 10, 2021, then-health minister Bahram Einollahi compared the death toll of the Iran-Iraq war with the COVID-19 crisis, saying that in the eight-year war about 240,000 people were killed, whereas in the 18 months of the pandemic, around 113,000 people had died. Referring to the victims, he added: “We should not sleep easy.”
At that time, the government had officially reported 136,000 deaths. These discrepancies once again highlight the issue of statistical cover-ups by the regime during the pandemic.
However, at the end of Rouhani’s presidency, the regime’s Ministry of Health announced: “The total number of COVID-19 fatalities has reached 91,785.” (State media – August 3, 2021)
Now, the figure of 700,000 deaths, revealed by Raisi’s deputy with emphasis that it was “documented,” is more than seven and a half times the official tally at the end of Rouhani’s term in August 2021.
on March 3, 2020, Khamenei described COVID-19 as an opportunity, saying: “In our view, this calamity is not such a great disaster. There have been and are greater calamities. We ourselves have witnessed some in this country… It is a passing matter… This can be a gain. If we can achieve those gains, calamity will turn into blessing; threat will turn into opportunity.”
On January 8, 2021, Khamenei declared: “The import of American and British vaccines is forbidden.”
On the same day, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: “Khamenei, the criminal, banned the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines—a crime against humanity. He is responsible for the slaughter of thousands of deprived and oppressed compatriots in the COVID-19 slaughterhouse. The international community must strongly condemn this crime and compel the regime to remove obstacles to vaccine imports.”
