SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North Korea imposed a nationwide blockade Thursday to control its first recognized COVID-19 outbreak after more than two years of adhering to a widely dubious claim of a perfect record that preserves the virus that has spread. in almost every place in the world.
The size of the outbreak was not immediately known, but it could have serious consequences, as the country has a poor health system and its 26 million people are thought to be largely unvaccinated. Some experts say the North, due to its rare outbreak, may seek outside help.
The official Korean Central News Agency said tests of samples collected Sunday from an unspecified number of people with fever in the capital, Pyongyang, confirmed that they were infected with the omicron variant.
In response, leader Kim Jong Un called for a complete blockade of cities and counties, saying jobs must be isolated from units to block the spread of the virus, KCNA said.
During a ruling Politburo meeting of the ruling party, Kim called on officials to stabilize the transmission and eliminate the source of the infection as soon as possible, while alleviating the inconvenience to the public caused by virus control. Kim said “public unity is the most powerful guarantee that can be won in this fight against the pandemic,” KCNA said.
North Korea did not provide more details about its blockade. But an Associated Press photographer on the South Korean border saw dozens of people working in agricultural fields or walking on footpaths in a North Korean border town – an indication that the blockade does not require people to stay at home or quit farming.
The Nordic government is avoiding vaccines offered by the UN-backed COVAX distribution program, presumably because they have international monitoring requirements.
Kim Sing-gon, a professor at the Korean University of Seoul Medical College, said North Korea was probably signaling a desire to receive foreign shipments of vaccines, but wanted many more doses than COVAX to inoculate its entire population repeatedly. He said North Korea would also want drugs for COVID-19, as well as supplies of medical equipment that are banned by UN sanctions.
The omicron variant is much easier to spread than earlier variants of the virus, and its mortality and hospitalization rates are high among unvaccinated adults or those with pre-existing health problems. This means that the epidemic could cause a “serious situation” because North Korea lacks medical equipment and drugs to treat patients with the virus, and many of its people are malnourished, Kim Sin Gong said.
Ann Kyung-soo, head of DPRKHEALTH.ORG, a website focused on health problems in North Korea, said North Korea could ask for an international supply of pills to treat COVID-19. But he said the North’s acceptance of the outbreak is also likely to put pressure on people to protect themselves from the virus, as China, which shares a long, porous border with the North, has blocked many cities for fear of virus.
Despite the increased response to the virus, Kim ordered officials to continue with planned construction, agricultural development and other government projects, while strengthening the country’s defenses to avoid any security vacuum.
The North is likely to double in terms of blockade, although the failure of China’s “zero COVID” approach suggests that the approach does not work against the fast-growing version of the omicron, said Leif-Eric Isley, professor of international studies at Ewha in Seoul. university.
“In order for Pyongyang to publicly acknowledge cases of omicron, the public health situation must be serious,” Isley said. “This does not mean that North Korea will suddenly be open to humanitarian aid and take a more conciliatory line to Washington and Seoul. But Kim’s regime’s domestic audience may be less interested in nuclear or missile tests when the emergency threat involves a coronavirus rather than a foreign army.
North Korea’s previous claim of being free of coronavirus has been challenged by many foreign experts. But South Korean officials said North Korea may have avoided a major outbreak, in part because it has introduced tight control of viruses almost since the pandemic began.
In early 2020, before the coronavirus spread around the world, North Korea took serious steps to prevent the virus and described it as a matter of “national existence.” He has quarantined people with COVID-19-like symptoms, nearly halted cross-border trafficking and trafficking for two years, and is even believed to have ordered troops to fire at the sight of any intruders crossing its borders.
Extreme border closures further shocked the economy, which has been damaged by decades of mismanagement and US-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile program, pushing Kim to perhaps the most difficult moment since taking office in 2011. .
North Korea was one of the last places in the world without a recognized case of COVID-19, after the virus, first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, spread to every continent, including Antarctica. Turkmenistan, an equally secretive and authoritarian nation in Central Asia, has not reported a single case to the World Health Organization, although its claim has also been strongly challenged by outside experts.
In recent months, some Pacific island nations that have kept the virus away from their geographical isolation have reported outbreaks. Only a small Tuvalu, with a population of about 12,000, has escaped the virus so far, while several other nations – Nauru, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands – have stopped cases at their borders and avoided outbreaks in the community.
North Korea’s outbreak comes as China – its close ally and trading partner – struggles with the biggest outbreak of the pandemic.
In January, North Korea conditionally reopened rail freight traffic between its border town of Sinuju and China’s Dandong for the first time in two years, but China halted trade last month due to an outbreak in Liaoning province, which borders North Korea.
Most of Dandong in Liaoning has been under siege since late April, and 78 new cases were opened in another city, Yingkou, on Wednesday. Another border province, Jilin, had a large outbreak in the past with tens of thousands of cases, but that has largely receded.
The outbreaks in northeast China were overshadowed by the huge outbreak that locked Shanghai in weeks, as well as the small outbreak in Beijing that caused a number of restrictions related to the pandemic in the nation’s capital.
It is unusual for North Korea to acknowledge the outbreak of any infectious disease, although Kim has occasionally been outspoken about national and social problems and political failures.
During a flu pandemic in 2009, when the country was ruled by his father, Kim Jong Il, North Korea said nine people in Pyongyang and the northwestern border town of Sinuju had contracted the flu. Some external experts said at the time that the adoption was aimed at gaining foreign aid.
Experts say Kim Jong Un has not yet publicly asked for any help, including vaccines against COVID-19 from the United States and South Korea amid a long stalemate in nuclear diplomacy.
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Associated Press reporters Lee Jin-man of Paju, South Korea, Ken Moritzugu of Beijing and Nick Perry of Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to the report.
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