Iran Says Social Distancing Plan Enforced in Iran with No Delay

Chief of Staff of the Iranian president Mahmoud Vaezi rejected certain allegations that the government delayed the enforcement of the social distancing plan.

“The first phase of this plan went into force right when the disease entered the country by closing schools and universities, canceling religious, cultural and sports gatherings, and urging people to stay in their homes plus commencing the national campaign against the coronavirus,” said Vaezi.

He also touched upon the issues brought up at a meeting of the National Coronavirus Fight Headquarters.

“Today, at the meeting of the Headquarters, promising reports and figures were presented with regards to the trend of managing the coronavirus epidemic,” he said.

“The country’s health and treatment system has had very good performance in fighting the coronavirus in cooperation with other government and state sectors as well as people’s very good cooperation,” he said.

“This achievement has been the result of not only round-the-clock efforts and sacrifice of medical staff and other institutions contributing to the management of the crisis, but also the government’s investment in the health sector over the past years,” he said.

The president’s chief of staff underlined that the coronavirus outbreak is a global issue and “we’d better base our judgement about our country’s performance in countering its spread on comparison with other countries’ track record.”

“What can be understood from statistics offered by the World Health Organization about the trend of the coronavirus outbreak in different countries is that unlike Italy, Spain and the United States where the coronavirus is fast spreading, in our country the trend of contracting the disease and its spread has become relatively stable, which indicates the efficiency of Iran’s decisions and policies in fighting the coronavirus,” Vaezi noted.

He said prompt detection of the disease upon its outbreak in the country is one of the reasons behind the success of Iran’s health and treatment in countering the coronavirus.

“Iran was the second country to detect the existence of the disease, and, fortunately, we enforced the national campaign against the coronavirus without delay, and since the very outset, enforced control and treatment measures as phase one of the social distancing plan” by closing educational centres and canceling social gatherings and congregations.

“Although school and university students as well as the youth deal with the COVID-19 more easily, they are among the most important carriers of the virus, and that is why the closure of schools and universities considerably stemmed the spread of the disease,” the president’s chief of staff said.

He underscored that the government fully complies with viewpoints of expert as well as directives of the National Coronavirus Task Force in adopting control and management measures.

“The success in controlling the disease in comparison with other countries has been the result of these very measures and policies, and we hope with the continuation of this trend, we will fully overcome this disease,” he said.

“We hope groups that are not of any help at this juncture and only seek to find faults and criticize and oppose [the government’s measures] will procrastinate efforts to settle political scores for the sake of people’s health at least for the time being when the country is grappling with this wicked virus,” he said.