China, Pyongyang’s only major ally, and the South Korean Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean issues, have said they are ready to provide medical and other assistance to North Korea.
Pyongyang has not responded to the proposal, but has repeatedly rejected efforts by China and the United Nations to help vaccinate the population in recent months.
North Korea and Eritrea – both impoverished and ruled by authoritarian regimes – are the only two countries in the world to have avoided vaccinations and left their populations vulnerable to variants of viruses that can no longer be controlled.
Last September, Pyongyang rejected the supply of nearly 3 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine through the WHO-led Covax program, saying they should be sent to more severely affected countries, UNICEF said.
He reduced the doses of AstraZeneca vaccine offered in July, also through Covax. She refused the drugs due to obvious concerns about potential side effects, according to a report by the Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS), a South Korean think tank linked to the country’s intelligence agencies.
Russia has also offered North Korea Covid vaccines twice, but Pyongyang has refused.
It is not known if Kim Jong-un was vaccinated, but the Daily NK website quoted rumors last year that he and the ruling elite were stabbed in May 2021.
Kim may now face the worst crisis of his rule, as a potential disaster with Covid combines the already deteriorating food security crisis.
Analysts say blocking across the country would hamper ongoing efforts to combat drought and the country’s “comprehensive fight” to combat worrying food shortages due to the closure of pandemics and last year’s typhoons.
State media reported last week that factory workers and even office workers and civil servants had been sent to help improve agricultural facilities and provide water resources across the country.
But Ji Son-ho, a South Korean politician who fled the North in 2006, warned that the virus could spread quickly, in part due to a lack of a functioning medical system.
“The outbreak of COVID could hit the current agricultural season hard and food security could become really serious this year and next,” he told a parliamentary session.
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