Coronavirus Outbreak – Why Turkey has Tapered but Iran hasn't

Though Iran and Turkey have very similar population sizes with 84M apiece, Iran occupies twice as much land space, making it the second largest country in Middle East, just behind its neighbor Saudi Arabia across the Persian Gulf. Iran shares the northern border with Turkey.

Highlights...

The Outbreak in Iran

Iran was one of the original victims of this pandemic outbreak, alongside China and South Korea. The graph makes it clear that the onslaught of the outbreak was in late February, peaking in late March. It had a textbook taper after having made a single modal peak with a daily caseload of 3,186 on 3/30. 

Unfortunately, as soon as the outbreak was nearing the end, it encountered a second wave, with a bigger resurgence than the original one. 

Thus far, the second wave has not only eclipsed the first peak, but has also surged past 3,500 cases on 6/4. Iran is one of the very few countries that has faced a second wave immediately following the first wave.

The Outbreak in Turkey

While the outbreak in Turkey did not occur until late March, it did take off quite rapidly, peaking in mid-April with an average daily caseload of 4,500. Like Iran, Turkey also demonstrated a single modal peak and a rapid subsequent taper, but no signs of any resurgence yet.

Given the steady and uneventful taper, Turkey, like some of its neighbors in Eastern Europe has started opening up the economy in phases.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

While both countries had had similar caseloads, death, recovery and active case rates, two challenging issues threw Iran back into the fray amid a more vicious second wave: (a) extremely poor testing and (b) high positivity rate. 

While Turkey's per capita testing record is nothing to write home about at a low 26K, Iran's credentials are absolutely miserable at 12K. Comparatively, the US has been logging at 59K which is still well below where it needs to be. 

Iran's high positivity rate at 16% vis-a-vis Turkey's 7.6% has been a public health catastrophe, considering its poor medical infrastructure due to the long-standing economic sanctions from the western world.

Stay safe!

Data Sources: 
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Iran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Turkey


-Sid Som
homequant@gmail.com