On Wednesday Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader, General Hossein Salami revealed a device that, he claimed, was capable of identifying COVID-19 coronavirus cases within a 100 meter (328 ft.) radius.
According to the general, the device is a product of scientists with the Basij militias. Instead of taking any sort of samples for analysis, it supposedly relies on a "magnetic field" and "polarized viruses" to detect the disease en mass with 80% precision. Salami added that it would go into mass production when the Health Ministry licensed it.
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The hand-held instrument that he demonstrated on camera looked like a device that Iranian forces supposedly use to search for smuggled fuel during vessel check-ups, Radio Farda reported.
The UK's Independent noted it also looked similar to a fake bomb detector – like those that British fraudster James McCormick sold to Iraqi forces.
The grand unveiling was not lost on Iranian social media users, who ridiculed the device online. With "polarized" also standing for "bipolar" in Persian, some wondered if the virus supposedly used in the device was prone to dramatic mood swings.
The news came after a research center with Iran's parliament released a report suggesting a massive cover-up of the true statistics on the outbreak in the country.
The latest official figures that Tehran has released put the death toll at 4,777, with almost 80,000 confirmed cases.
This article was originally published by i24NEWS.
