North Korea had long claimed to be corona-free. Now there are official confirmations of infections and deaths for the first time.
North Korea has reported 21 new deaths amid the coronavirus outbreak in the country. The victims were among the more than 520,000 people who had had a fever since the end of April.
The number of fever-related deaths rose to 27 on Friday, the state-controlled media reported on Saturday. How many of them are actually due to corona disease remained unclear. The largely isolated and authoritarian country officially confirmed infections with the pathogen on Thursday for the first time since the outbreak of the corona pandemic.
According to reports, at a meeting of the Politburo of the ruling Workers’ Party, ruler Kim Jong Un described the spread of the “malignant disease” as a major upheaval in the country’s history. The public health crisis is due to incompetence and irresponsibility.
At the same time, Kim expressed confidence that the outbreak could be controlled. He called on party organizations at all levels to be “the shock brigade and bulletproof wall in the current intense fight against the epidemic,” it said.
On Thursday, North Korea initially spoke of an undetermined number of residents in the capital Pyongyang who had contracted the corona virus. A day later, it was said that the virus had spread across the country. Six people with fever died and the omicron subvariant BA.2 was detected in one victim.
Kim had ordered all cities and counties to be strictly sealed off on Thursday. How people are cared for during a curfew was considered unclear. According to UN organizations, large sections of the population do not have regular access to food. North Korea had long claimed to be corona-free. The information was doubted abroad.
Source: Stern
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