TEHRAN,Iran,April 10
Trend:
Iranian parliament's bill for implementing one month of quarantine to curb the coronavirus spread was rejected, Iranian MP Tayebeh Siyavashi told Trend.
"One of the important issues as far as COVID-19 goes, is buying time. The Nowruz holiday (started March 20,2020) was the best time to cut the cycle but resuming of work of organizations and companies next week with two third of their workforce being active, may increase the infection rate," she said.
"Many people are simple workers and employees so their income depends on daily work, therefore the volume of inner city travels is growing, and that's very concerning. So in this regard the parliament has submitted a bill for quarantine of the country for a month but it was rejected," Siyavashi said.
"We followed the article 79 of the constitution while submitting the bill, that requires the help of the government so we could reduce the crisis and casualties," the MP added.
She added that the voting on the bill didn't go smoothly, and only 25 MPs signed the bill that was eventually rejected.
"There are days of work put behind this bill, the health should be a priority, it's not justifiable when people sacrifice themselves for income, in fact we believe people's lives are more important than economy but the bill did not pass and overwhelmed some MPs," Siyavashi said.
"I believe the social distancing plan doesn't produce results, and the effect of the coronavirus has been seen in recent days at subway stations and inside buses," she said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. Some sources claim the coronavirus outbreak started as early as November 2019.
Iran is one of the countries heavily affected by the rapidly-spreading coronavirus. The country continues to apply strict measures to contain the further spread. Reportedly, the disease was brought to Iran by a businessman from Iran's Qom city, who went on a business trip to China, despite official warnings. The man died later from the disease.
The Islamic Republic only announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19.