[al-Monitor] As of March 17, the coronavirus
 ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
epidemic in Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
had killed nearly a thousand people and infected over 16,000 others. For a theocracy like the Islamic Theocratic Republic , closing down religious sites as a measure to slow transmission is a tough decision, leaving the authorities stuck between a rock and hard place.
Yet with the epidemic showing no sign of abating, the Iranian authorities chose to impose a lockdown on the key religious sites, among them the highly revered shrines of Hazrat Masoumeh and Imam Reza in the conservative cities of Qom and Mashhad, respectively.
The controversial decision triggered furious reactions from some hard-liners, who saw it as an unforgivable insult to the "infallible" household of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Videos quickly went viral from outside the two shrines, showing mobs breaking metal fences and storming the sites as they cursed those who ordered the closure. "No one in the past 14 centuries has managed to close this door, not even during the Mongol Conquest. ... We will continue to stay outside the shrine until it is reopened," said one of the protest leaders addressing the crowds.
Elsewhere at a sit-in, the protesters rolled their eyes, jumped up and down, and hollered poorly rhymed slogans real loud against President Hassan Rouhani
...Iran's moderate president, which he is, relative to his predecessor, which doesn't mean he's anything but a puppet of the nearest holy man...
and his health minister and expressed open defiance toward orders from the capital, suggesting that Mashhad would act on its own discretion and independently from the central government. 
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