By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Okay, I’ll say it if no one else will… the wrath of God anyone? Evidently a senior Iranian official has succumbed to the coronavirus. This guy was a close adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mohammad Mir-Mohammadi, a member of the Expediency Council, died at a Tehran hospital on Monday making him one of 66 people the virus has killed in the nation. He was among 1,501 confirmed cases reported. I don’t believe those numbers in the least by the way and no expert out there does either. Iran lies even more than China does.

Fox News is now reporting that other Iranian government officials have been infected with the deadly virus as well. The Iranian Health Ministry said there were 523 new cases in the past 24 hours. It is a 53 percent increase since the day before. Of course, that means Iran has been lying about the number of cases in their country all along.

The reports also state that COVID-19 has already infected Iran’s vice president and deputy health minister. It may burn through their entire leadership before it is done. Divine intervention if you ask me. The infected include Masoumeh Ebtekar, a vice president and a spokeswoman during the 1979 revolution, as well as Iraj Harirchi, the head of the regime’s task force to combat COVID-19. That is the very definition of irony.

On Monday, Iran rejected help from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who announced last week the U.S. was concerned Iran may have covered up details on the spread of the virus. They don’t care how many of their people die from this disease and they also delusionally believe the elite will be spared. Nope. The devout and sinner will die side by side if this is as bad as they claim and that is debatable as well.

“We neither count on such help nor are we ready to accept verbal help,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said during a briefing on Monday. He added the country has always been “suspicious” over American intentions, and that the U.S. government was trying to weaken Iranians’ spirits over the outbreak. Well, they’ve also accused the U.S. and Israel of creating the virus and releasing it. I personally believe the bug got out of a bioweapons facility in Wuhan, China but Iran looks suspicious over this as well. Projection once again is the Iranian way.

Iran’s mortality rate from the virus is approximately 5.5 percent, compared to an overall fatality rate of about 2 percent in China. The difference in rates has led people to suggest the number of infections in Iran is higher than what the country has officially reported – well, duh. The country’s first case was reported less than two weeks ago. And I suspect the fatality rate is even higher than that right now.

The country is battling medical shortages which are worsened by U.S. sanctions, with masks and testing kits in short supply. But their own people are making it far, far worse through religious fervor.

From The Epoch Times:

In recent days, Iran’s neighbors and other Middle Eastern countries have closed their borders and suspended air travel after coronavirus patients were traced back to the country.

“We have no plan to quarantine any district or any city. We only quarantine individuals,” Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday, according to BBC.

Iran’s parliament has been suspended indefinitely, universities and schools have been closed, and public gatherings have been canceled, according to state-run media outlets.

Iran will now test tens of thousands after cases exploded over the weekend. It’s way too late but they’ll go through the motions. The country has closed schools and universities due to COVID-19, but religious Shiite shrines have remained open. Last week, Iranians were captured licking some of the shrines in defiance of the coronavirus. They are doing it to prove they don’t fear the virus and that Allah will save them. In fact, many of them hope they get it. Geez.

From The Daily Wire:

The Middle East Media Research Institute, a non-partisan organization that specializes in tracking down extremist content online, highlighted several of the clips that allegedly showed Iranians licking the shrine.

“Iranians have posted several videos on social media, featuring devout Shiites licking holy shrines in defiance of the coronavirus. In some of the videos, worshippers say they are licking the shrines in order to infect themselves, thus protecting future pilgrims to the shrines from contracting the virus,” the Middle East Media Research Institute reported. “On March 1, 2020, a pilgrim posted a video of himself licking the steel bars protecting the window of a Shiite shrine.”

“If there are diseases or microbes there, let them enter our bodies and the bodies of our children, so that nothing happens to the pilgrims visiting Imam Reza,” one of the men who licks a shrine states.

Here is the transcript from MEMRI:

MAN #1: This is the steel window in the Ali ibn Musa Al-Reza shrine. Millions of people have come here and touched it from remote villages, from cities, from streets, from countries, and continents. I’ve heard that some of the enemies of the family of the Prophet have recently spread rumors that the shrine and this window contracted corona, AIDS, hepatitis, and such nonsense. So I have come to lick the window of Imam Reza’s shrine so that the disease enters my body and you would be able to make the pilgrimage peacefully. I have now eaten the corona disease. May you now come to visit our beloved.

MAN #2: He kissed it, licked it, and spread it on his eyes. If there are diseases or microbes there, let them enter our bodies and the bodies of our children, so that nothing happens to the pilgrims visiting Imam Reza.

MAN #3: This place has become full of corona. Look, I’m licking it so that all the corona enters my body. Let all the corona come to me.

MAN #4: I have come to Qom. At the mosque as well in private meetings, we will kiss everybody. We will meet with everybody. We will go to the Fatima Masuma Shrine. We will go everywhere and will do everything, and we will show everything the [coronavirus] is nothing but stories. They want to take away our religion. They want to harm us. What they are doing is meaningless. We won’t listen to this. Besides, what kind of disease is this that you blow it out of proportions? Is there any problem to cure it? I am ready to personally go where the infected people are. I will start treating them there and you will see how fast they are cured. It hasn’t been proven yet that the deaths are caused by corona. Someone is about to die, he gets the ‘corona’ cold and dies. I heard of two or three cases [of people], who were said to have died. I asked and was told that they had been sick for a long time. They had been on medication and would eat one kilogram of chemical meds every day.

Journalist Masih Alinejad, who tweeted the worrying clips, said that by keeping the religious sites open, the regime was “endangering the lives of Iranians and the world.”

Every day trucks filled with disinfectants spray down streets, shrines, public parks, trash bins, public toilets and markets in Qom, Tehran and other areas that have had cases of infection. State TV showed workers wiping down metro and bus stations. “The smell of disinfectants has become my nightmare,” said retired teacher Ziba Rezaie, 62, from Qom. “The city smells like a cemetery, a morgue.”

“Hospitals are full of infected people. We hear about hundreds of deaths,” said a doctor in Tehran. “We need more hospitals. The death toll will rise.” The Health Ministry has ordered hospitals to admit only infected people and those patients who need immediate care. Dozens of military-run hospitals have been allocated to treat infected people.

Touching and kissing surfaces in shrines is a common practice for pilgrims, and religious hardliners argue the holy sites of Qom are “a place for healing.” At this rate, they’ll also be a place for death. No wonder most countries are banning traveling to and those coming from Iran.

Perhaps the virus will take down the regime. But the cost would be hellishly high. In the end, it may accomplish what sanctions and deterrents couldn’t. If the virus does not kill tons of Iranians, the people may well rise up in their anger and finally take their country back.

https://twitter.com/thejcoop/status/1233099035642417153