After facing sanctions and the risk of war amid tensions with the U.S., Iran now has an enemy in the new virus that infiltrated its leadership in plain view of state-controlled media and despite repeated denials of any looming threat. By jongambrellAP
Pedestrians walk as some of them wear masks in downtown Tehran, Iran, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. Amid fear and uncertainty caused by the spread of a new virus, Iranians are taking extra caution to avoid getting infected, as authorities canceled Friday prayers in Tehran, Qom and other cities.
Iran’s success — or failure — in combating in the virus will have an impact far beyond the country’s 80 million people as the majority of cases in the Mideast now link back to Iran. Meanwhile, Iranian state media made a point to show the government is addressing the crisis. In the city of Mashhad, at the Imam Reza Shrine, hazmat-suited cleaners fogged disinfectant across surfaces that the faithful kiss and touch as workers installed hand sanitizers. Trucks from Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard sprayed down streets and sidewalks in the holy city of Qom, the epicenter of the country’s outbreak.
On Thursday, word spread that one of Iran’s many vice presidents, Masoumeh Ebtekar, had contracted the virus. Ebtekar, 59, is better known as “Sister Mary,” the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis. Some Iranian clerics also have offered advice with no basis in science, like Sheikh Abbas Tabrizian in Qom who told followers to give themselves a suppository of essential oils to ward off the virus.
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