Iranian Deputy Health Minister Harirchi: We Oppose Quarantines; If We Shut Down Qom, People Would Go Traveling, Spreading Coronavirus All Over the Country

Iranian deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi addressed the coronavirus concerns in a press conference aired on Iran's IRINN TV, on February 24, 2020. He said that Iran is absolutely against quarantines in order to contain the coronavirus, stating that this policy belongs to the era before WWI and to diseases such as the Plague and cholera. He continued to say that the Chinese themselves "are not pleased" with this policy. He added that if Iran was to shut down the city of Qom, the epicenter of the virus in Iran, people would go traveling and would spread it over the entire country. On February 25, Harirchi posted a video on Twitter in which he confirmed that he had been infected with coronavirus.

Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi: "With regard to quarantines – we are absolutely against them. Quarantines belong to pre-WWI – to the Plague, cholera, stuff like that... The Chinese themselves are not so pleased with the quarantine there. After all, quarantines have consequences. Let's suppose that you quarantine a certain city – what would the people of that city do? Look, we are carefully calculating all our decisions. We are analyzing and forecasting the effects of each decision we make. Let's assume that we shut down Qom for ten consecutive days. Everybody would go traveling, and this will cause the disease to spread all over the country."