Coronavirus: Iran poll finds majority support urban lockdowns

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Polling data published on Sunday shows an overwhelming majority of Iranians support a complete lockdown of urban areas to help contain the coronavirus outbreak. 

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday again ruled out the possibility of a lockdown, claiming the policy would not be effective.

“There is no such thing at all, there is no quarantine,” Rouhani said, according to Tasnim. “Not today, not during the Nowruz holidays, not afterwards, and not before that.” 

The Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) surveyed 1,554 people via telephone between March 11 and 15. 

In a statement published on its website on Sunday, the ISPA said: “89.4 percent people of Iran agree with quarantining cities where the coronavirus has spread more. 75.2 percent of respondents are very concerned about themselves or a member of their families contracting coronavirus.”

Iran has become the epicenter of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which has killed 853 people and infected 14,991 as of Monday afternoon. 

Many Iranians believe authorities should have acted faster and put the holy city of Qom on lockdown when the virus was first detected there. 

There is speculation that Iranian authorities are underreporting the death toll and scale of contagion. 

Amir A. Afkhami, an associate professor of psychiatry, global health, and history at George Washington University and author of ‘A Modern Contagion: Imperialism and Public Health in Iran’s Age of Cholera’, believes Iran should have taken more robust measured to contain the virus. 

“The Iranian government’s inadequate precautionary measures to restrict and monitor travelers from China ensured that the disease would make landfall in Iran much more quickly than in any other country of the Middle East,” Afkhami told Michael Young of Carnegie Middle East Center. 

“Tehran’s lack of transparency and unwillingness to take robust measures, such as social distancing and quarantines, particularly at the epicenter of the outbreak in Qom, helped spread the virus shortly after it arrived.” 

On Monday, renowned Iranian economist Fariborz Raisdana succumbed to the disease and died in a Tehran hospital. Raisdana was a former political prisoner and a member of Iranian Writers’ Association. 

Around two dozen Iranian officials, including parliamentarians and senior members of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have died after contracting the virus.

Two towns in the Kurdish province of Kermanshah, western Iran have taken matters into their own hands, closing roads and barring entry.

The government has taken some measures to slow the spread of the virus. The head of judiciary Ebrahim Raisi said last week that 83,000 prisoners have been released to help prevent Iran’s prison system becoming an incubator for the virus. 

Rouhani told a meeting of the Emergency Cell on Monday he is hopeful Iran will overcome the crisis. 

“According to the data, we have passed the peak of the corona disease and I advise people to stay at home. If you have to exit your house, follow the medical protocols in place,” Rouhani said.