- North Korea declares “worst national emergency”
- Potential for an “unprecedented crisis” for Kim Jong Un – expert
- The isolated state has rejected the international vaccine offer
- No North Korean civilians are believed to have been vaccinated
SEOUL, May 12 (Reuters) – North Korea confirmed its first COVID-19 outbreak on Thursday, calling it “the worst national emergency” and ordered a national blockade, with state media reporting that a version of Omicron.
The first public recognition of COVID infections highlights the potential for a major crisis in a country that has refused international vaccination aid and kept its borders closed.
As of March, no cases of COVID-19 have been reported, according to the World Health Organization, and there is no official document for vaccinated North Koreans.
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“The most serious emergency of the state has occurred: a pause has been made on our front to prevent emergency epidemics, where we have been firmly defending ourselves for two years and three months since February 2020,” the official KCNA news agency said.
Samples taken on May 8 from people in Pyongyang who had a fever showed a subvariant of the Omicron virus, also known as BA.2, the report said, without giving details of the number of cases or possible sources of infection.
The report was released after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un chaired a meeting of the Workers’ Party on Thursday to discuss responses to the outbreak.
Kim ordered all cities and counties in the country to “strictly close” their regions to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and said emergency medical supplies would be mobilized, according to the KCNA.
“State prevention of the epidemic will be transferred to the system for maximum emergency epidemic prevention,” said KCNA.
Although the North has never confirmed any coronavirus infection in the country, officials in South Korea and the United States doubt the country is free of COVID, as cases of Omicron have been widely reported in neighboring South Korea and China.
The isolated North has imposed strict quarantine measures, including border blockades, since the pandemic began in early 2020. In July of that year, Kim declared a state of emergency and blocked Quezon, near the inter-Korean border, three weeks after a man fled south in 2017, returned to the city, showing symptoms of coronavirus.
According to the latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO), 64,207 of North Korea’s more than 24.7 million people have been tested for COVID-19; all were found negative by March 31.
North Korea has rejected vaccine supplies from the global vaccine sharing program COVAX COVID-19 and the Sinovac Biotech vaccine from China, suggesting that civilians may not have been vaccinated. Read more
The South Korean presidential office told Reuters that President Yun Suk Yol, who was sworn in on May 10th, would not link humanitarian aid to the political situation, opening the door to support the North.
The news of the epidemic comes amid reports of preparations for an upcoming nuclear test in the North, which is also aggressively pursuing a ballistic missile program, according to US and South Korean officials. Read more
WITHOUT VACCINE, NO MEDICAL INFRASTRUCTURE
A KCNA report on Thursday said Kim told a Labor Party meeting that the goal of the latest emergency quarantine system was to stably control and manage the spread of coronavirus and quickly treat infected people to eliminate the source of transmission. the shortest period.
Failure to control infections could be an “unprecedented crisis for the Kim Jong Un regime,” said Lim Yul-Chul, a professor of North Korean studies at South Korea’s Kyungnam University.
“Given the worsening vaccination situation and the weaker testing capacity and public health infrastructure compared to China, plus the lack of intensive care units, there is potential for dozens of victims,” he said.
Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute noted that North Korea’s national blockade has the potential to be extremely destructive.
“Over time, North Korea is likely to face severe food shortages and, as China is now experiencing, huge confusion,” he said.
The Central Bank of South Korea said in an annual report in July 2021 that North Korea’s economy had suffered its biggest contraction in 23 years in 2020, burdened by COVID border controls, UN sanctions and bad weather. Read more
Professor Yang Mu-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said that the fact that Kim convened a meeting of the party’s Politburo at dawn and the state media immediately published the discussions shows the urgency of the situation. This could be an indirect request to the international community for help, he added.
A South Korean-based website monitoring Pyongyang’s activities said this week that residents had been told to return home and stay indoors due to a “national problem” without providing details.
Earlier on Thursday, Chinese state television reported that North Korea had obliged its people to stay at home since May 11, as many of them “suspected flu symptoms” without referring to COVID-19.
The main checkpoint between China’s Dandong and the northwestern North Korean city of Sinuju was closed in April due to the COVID situation in the Chinese city, China said.
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Report by Soo-hyang Choi and Joori Roh in Seoul, Ryan Woo in Beijing; Edited by Jack Kim and Gary Doyle
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