TEHRAN (Satrapia) — Ten new cases of coronavirus have been detected in Iran, one of which died, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said Saturday.

The new data reported by the Ministry of Health brings the number of casualties to 5 with a total of 28 cases of infection in the country.

As we warned in January, Iran (and Afghanistan) is a high risk country for the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (ex COVID-19, ex 2019-nCoV). Events have proved us right, since, apart from mainland China, Iran is the country where the virus has claimed the most victims so far. Taking into account a ratio of 3% of deaths to the total number of infestations, there would be at least 170 infected people in the country.

However, the most worrying aspect of the epidemic in the region is Pakistan, officially completely spared, which is statistically impossible for a densely populated country with close ties to China. Moreover, the decision of the Pakistani authorities not to repatriate its students from Wuhan is most curious.