North Korea's first-reported COVID-19 outbreak is the 'greatest turmoil' to befall the country since its founding more than 70 years ago, according to its leader Kim Jong Un. 9News
, according to state media KCNA, though it did not specify how many of the deaths and cases were linked to COVID, likely due to the country's extremely limited testing capacity.
Foreign diplomats and aid workers had fled North Korea en masse in 2021 due to shortages of goods and "unprecedented" restrictions on daily life, making it all the more impossible to obtain information from the country other than through official state media. It even declined invitations to send teams to compete at the Tokyo and Beijing Olympics, citing the threat of COVID-19.
An outbreak of COVID-19 could prove disastrous for North Korea. The country's dilapidated health care infrastructure and lack of testing equipment is unlikely to be up to the task of treating a large number of patients with a highly infectious disease.An employee of the Kyonghung Foodstuff General Store disinfects the showroom countertops in Pyongyang, North Korea in November 2021.
Doctors who have defected in recent years often speak of poor working conditions and shortages of everything from medicine to basic healthcare supplies.Choi Jung-hun, a former physician in North Korea who fled the country in 2011, said when he was helping to combat a measles outbreak in 2006 to 2007, North Korea did not have the resources to operate round-the-clock quarantine and isolation facilities.
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, top, attends a meeting on anti-virus strategies in Pyongyang, North Korea According to KCNA, the politburo criticized the country's anti-epidemic sector for "carelessness, laxity, irresponsibility and incompetence," saying it "failed to respond sensitively" to increasing COVID-19 cases across the world, including in neighboring regions.
At a meeting on Saturday, Kim inspected the country's emergency epidemic measures and medical supplies.
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