Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei decreed the establishment of a “Health and Treatment Base” by Iran’s military for combatting the COVID-19 virus, and noted that “this measure may also be regarded as a biological defence exercise and add to our national sovereignty and power given the evidence that suggests the likelihood of this being a ‘biological attack’”. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo subsequently riposted that “the best biological defence would’ve been to tell the Iranian people the truth about the Wuhan virus when it spread to Iran from China. Instead, he [ie, Khamenei] kept Mahan Air flights coming and going to the epicenter in China and jailed those who spoke out”.