North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described the outbreak of North Korea’s first coronavirus as a “major catastrophe” and reported 21 new deaths.
And the British newspaper The Guardian quoted state media as saying that more than 174,000 people had “fever symptoms” on Friday, while North Korea was seeking to slow the spread of the corona wave among its unvaccinated population.
And North Korean officials said Saturday that amid a rapidly spreading fever since late April, 27 people have died and more than 524,000 have been infected. About 280,000 people are still in quarantine, according to the organization.
“More than 174,440 people contracted the fever on Friday alone, of which at least 81,430 recovered and 21 died nationwide,” the official North Korean news agency said on Friday.
And officials confirmed Thursday that the highly contagious Omicron mutant has been identified in Pyongyang, and that leader Kim Jong Un has ordered a nationwide quarantine.
This was the first official confirmation of Covid’s cases, and signaled the failure of a two-year, costly economic shutdown since the outbreak.
“The total number of people suffering from fever from the end of April to May 4 exceeded 524,440, and a total of 27 people died,” the official news agency reported.
The report did not specify whether the new cases and deaths were related to Corona, but experts say the country will have a hard time conducting tests and examinations at this scale.
At a meeting on anti-virus strategies on Saturday, Kim described the outbreak as a historic “major upheaval” and called for “unity between government and people” to fight it as soon as possible.
“The outbreak of a contagious disease since the establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, along with the outbreak of the corona, is a great turmoil in our country,” he said.
According to the official North Korean Central News Agency, the meeting discussed the “immediate distribution of emergency medicine” and “scientific and therapeutic methods for different patients.”
According to the report, Kim said he “believes in his country’s ability to overcome this dangerous and infectious disease in the shortest possible time.”
Kim noted that North Korean officials “will follow the Chinese model of preventing the virus.”
And state media said tests of virus samples collected last Sunday from an unspecified number of people with fever in the Pyongyang capital confirmed that they had omicron mutants.
Health experts say that given North Korea’s poor health care system and population of about 26 million, which is largely vulnerable, not controlling the outbreak of Quaid could have dire consequences for North Korea.
North Korea has previously rejected China’s proposals for anti-Quid vaccines, as well as the World Health Organization-supervised Kovacs platform.
Source: Lebanon Debate
