Iraq tops Iran’s daily COVID-19 cases

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraqi health authorities have been reporting increasingly higher numbers of coronavirus infections and, since Saturday, even topping the official tally of its eastern neighbor, Iran, from where the virus entered Iraqi territory in February.

On Wednesday, the Iraqi health ministry announced close to 3,000 new cases in a single day, beating the country’s previous all-time high that came just Saturday. Both Iraq and Iran have recently been reporting similar numbers, with Iraq now having topped Iran's daily infections count for the fourth day.

Iran was the original epicenter of the disease in the Middle East, due largely to air travel with China which continued well after the spread of the virus that first appeared there in late 2019. Now, Iraq appears to have the worst current outbreak throughout the region.

Iran has close to 300,000 coronavirus infections, while Iraq has about 120,000, per official data of both sides. The population of Iran is about twice that of Iraq with about 84 million residents. The total reported fatalities due to the virus is more than 16,000 in Iran and just over 4,600 in Iraq.

At the same time, Iraq claims to have 30,000 active cases, nearly 7,000 more than that of Iran.

From the start, and through mid-May, transmission in Iraq appeared relatively slow amid a country-wide lockdown and limited testing abilities. Since late May, however, the number of new cases has risen dramatically as Iraq reopened domestically as well as some border crossings with neighboring Iran.

Related Article: Iraq tops daily record for new COVID-19 cases, deaths; total infections near 40,000

In Iran, however, infections peaked in late March, and slowed only slightly in early May. Later that month, after Tehran eased limited lockdown measures, health authorities started regularly declaring numbers that either approached or surpassed 2,000 daily infections.

The latest spikes indicate the difficulties Baghdad and Tehran—and indeed governments throughout much of the world—are facing in curbing the spread of the disease, formally referred to as COVID-19. For many leaders, economic considerations trumped continued lockdown measures which were taking their toll on workers.

After reopening, many governments have launched awareness campaigns to promote social distancing and the wearing of masks in public as the disease resurged, to varying degrees of effectiveness. The number of daily cases has been soaring globally as the virus takes hold in more underdeveloped nations.

In what appeared to be a bid to get the public on board with abiding by health guidelines, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani claimed on July 18 that some 25 million people around the country had been infected with COVID-19 since the outbreak of the disease.

Read More: Iran claims 25 million COVID-19 cases since outbreak

The number was then about 100 times larger than Iran’s official statistics. Notably, Rouhani claimed that the death count was the same as that which had been reported by the health ministry. He said that the data had been taken from a health ministry study into the matter which the president did not elaborate on.

Though the Rouhani government’s intention might have been to alert the public of the omnipresence of the virus, it will likely make them feel the disease is far less deadly than it actually is, roughly 100 times less deadly.

In the meantime, mass graves of COVID-19 dead in both countries continue to be filled. In Iraq, families of workers, especially those in professions most likely to catch the virus—hospital employees, for example—, are feeling the effects of the virus firsthand. However, some continue to deny the severity of the threat it poses.

Along with the higher fatality rate and level of contagiousness when compared to some other infectious diseases like the common cold, the coronavirus also has a chance to leave those who have “recovered” from it with long-lasting symptoms, many COVID-19 survivors have said, including ones with “mild” initial symptoms.

Editing by John J. Catherine