image Photo: Reuters

Iran to resume economic activity despite Mideast’s worst COVID-19 outbreak

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has announced that “medium sized and low-risk businesses can resume their activity” on 11 April everywhere but Tehran, where the coronavirus continues to rage uncontrollably.

Even though the Ayatollah Regime has not been able to control the spread of the disease in the capital, Rouhani declared that “under the supervision of the Health Ministry, all low-risk economic activities in Tehran will resume from Saturday, April 18.”

Iran has 60,500 confirmed cases and a fatality rate of 3,739 from COVID-19, marking the worst outbreak in the Middle East.

Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi has once again rejected an offer of humanitarian assistance from the United States, insisting that Washington should instead lift punishing economic sanctions imposed to curb nuclear development in the Islamic Republic.  “We don’t need help from the US (to combat coronavirus), If the U.S. released our assets which they have boycotted unjustly, and stopped banning us from international trade, and stopped imposing sanction on our banks and other organizations, we would be capable of solving our problems by our own means,” Harirchi retorted, adding “We don’t need these nonsense offers of help from the U.S.

The Iranian Deputy Health Minister went on to ridicule Western powers for an inability to save the lives of their own elderly citizens. “Our situation is not like in European countries or Canada, where they claim to be world leaders or in the top seven industrialized nations, but are struggling to treat patients over the age of 70; or diabetic patients or patients with cardiovascular issues, into the ICU,” he declared, claiming, “We have elderly patients who have stayed in ICU and survived.”

And while Iran boasts of its ability to save the lives of its people, Reuters is reporting that hackers working in the interests of the Iranian government have attempted to break into the personal email accounts of World Health Organization (WHO) personnel during the coronavirus outbreak.

While it remains unclear if any accounts were successfully compromised, Reuters cited four WHO officials who maintained the Iranian hackers were unquestionably seeking information on COVID-19.

WHO Spokesman Tarik Jasarevic confirmed the targeting of organizational staffers’ personal email accounts by hackers, but stopped short of accusing the Islamic Republic of responsibility.