for the first time in 24 hours, the number of infected patients exceeds 5,000
- Masoud Mardani, member of the National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce (NCCT): Daily Coronavirus death toll has surged to 337. This is not the real figure; it should be multiplied by 2.5 to get the actual figure. (ISNA, October 20, 2020)
- Masih Daneshvari Hospital: The current mortality rate was predicted, and if the (protocols) are not observed, it will reach 600 per day.
- Minoo Mohraz, a member of the NCCT: The situation is horrific. It is too late for quarantine. 4,700 people are hospitalized in ICU wards. In my 45 years of medical practice, I had not seen this many critically ill patients and deaths. (Khabar Fori news site, October 20, 2020)
- Tehran City Council Spokesperson: Why is Tehran not locked down? Why is it that we do not impose serious restrictions in provinces in the red state? Coronavirus is not contained by giving empathetic advice. (Tasnim news agency, October 20, 2020)
- Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), while extending her condolences to the bereaved families, said: This horrific tragedy is the result of the criminal and plundering policies of Khamenei and Rouhani, who instead of providing the workers and laborers with living expenses, force them back to work, to the Coronavirus killing field and then blame the people for not following the protocols.
Mrs. Rajavi added: In another example of plunderand criminal conduct, while the health of millions of Iranians is endangered by the scarcity of diabetes drugs, the regime’s Revolutionary Guards and mafia gangs are smuggling drugs into neighboring countries to fill in their coffers or to finance terrorist activities. Iranian people are expressing their outrage and hatred, crying out that we do not want missiles; we want medicine.
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) announced on Tuesday, October 20, 2020, that the Coronavirus fatalities in 458 cities had exceeded 128,000. The number of victims in Tehran is 30,751, Khorasan Razavi 9,687, Isfahan 6,692, East Azerbaijan 4,544, West Azerbaijan 3,631, Golestan 3,631, Mazandaran 5,747, Hormozgan 1,640, Hamedan 3,373, Yazd 1,881, Alborz 3,533, Fars 3,371, Kermanshah 2,778, Kurdistan 2,296, North Khorasan 2,179, Kerman 1,973, Semnan 1,922, Bushehr 1,525, Ardabil 1,458, Qazvin 1,248, and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari 977.
In a meeting with the Minister and directors of regime Health Ministry, Rouhani, angry over the revelations that have disclosed the realities about the Coronavirus tragedy, said today, “Occasionally, our medical specialists and senior medics do not speak in a coordinated fashion, and sometimes contradict each other. While alerting people and explaining the consequences of the disease, we should not speak in a way that would create fear… We shouldn’t speak in a way that people feel that the government is not using all its power to confront the virus.” Responding to the widespread calls to shut down activities to curb Coronavirus, he again, blamed people:, “How can we guarantee that when we say do not go to work, they will stay at home? Or do they not do all what they usually do during the holidays? Some ideas may sound good to us but are not practical.”
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
October 20, 2020
