North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Monday criticized his country’s health authorities for their approach to addressing the Covid-19 epidemic, which has killed 50 people since it was officially announced in the country, calling on the military to intervene to solve problems related to the “medicine reserves” in Pyongyang.
Referring to the seriousness of the situation, North Korea’s official news agency reported that Kim “strongly criticized government officials and the public health authority charged with providing (drugs) for their irresponsible attitude because they did not roll up their sleeves or appreciate the scale of the current crisis.”
And Kim considered during an emergency meeting of the Politburo, Sunday, that “the orders have not been implemented properly so far, and the medicines have not been provided in the necessary form for pharmacies,” according to what the agency quoted him as saying. He added that pharmacies did not comply with the order to open their doors for 24 hours.
He also ordered the military commission to “immediately stabilize the medicine supply in Pyongyang,” where the first COVID-19 cases in North Korea were officially revealed last week.
Kim stressed earlier that the outbreak was causing “great turmoil” in countries whose residents had not received a vaccine against it.
The North Korean leader oversees almost daily emergency Politburo meetings, and North Korean media published pictures of him visiting a pharmacy in Pyongyang on Sunday.
“Fever”
Despite the widespread imposition of the closure, the official news agency, which does not explicitly refer to the epidemic but talks about a “fever”, stated that the total number of injuries in the country reached 1,213,550 cases, in addition to fifty deaths, noting that at least 564,860 people are undergoing treatment.
The health system in North Korea lacks the necessary medicines and necessary equipment, according to experts, and is one of the worst in the world, ranking 193 out of 195, according to an investigation conducted by Johns Hopkins University in the United States.
In the absence of anti-Covid vaccines and the inability to conduct large-scale testing, experts warn that North Korea will have great difficulty in responding to a large-scale outbreak of the virus.
“By visiting the pharmacy, Kim Jong-un was able to see the shortage of medicines in North Korea with his own eyes…Maybe the situation is more serious than he thought,” Chung Seong-chan of the Sejong Institute told AFP.
Read also: The North Korean leader describes the Corona outbreak in his country as a “big disaster”
‘Sense of crisis’
North Korea was one of the first countries to close its borders in January 2020 when the virus emerged. But experts considered that it is likely that the virus will eventually infiltrate it, with the outbreak of the epidemic due to the mutant “Omicron” in neighboring countries.
Professor Yang Moo-jin at the University of North Korean Studies noted that Kim’s public rebuke of his government reflected the “sense of crisis” that plagued the regime. “It points to the general flaw in the quarantine system,” he stressed.
According to the North’s official news agency, the Korean leader expressed his intention to draw inspiration from China’s strategy to combat the epidemic.
And China, the only major economic power in the world that still applies the “zero Covid” policy, imposes closure measures on major cities when any infection is recorded, and tracks and isolates the injured systematically.
North Korea has previously rejected offers from China for anti-Covid vaccines, as well as from the Kovacs platform supervised by the World Health Organization.
On Monday, new South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol told the National Assembly that he “will not hesitate to provide necessary assistance to the North Korean people… If the North Korean authorities agree, we will provide all necessary support, such as medicines, vaccines, medical equipment and health personnel.”
Pyongyang has yet to respond to Seoul’s latest offer, the Unification Ministry said.
The decision may depend more on plans to conduct nuclear tests than on the health situation, according to the researcher at the Sejong Institute.
On Monday, the World Health Organization expressed concern about the situation and expressed its willingness to provide both technical support and medical supplies.
“As the country has not yet started vaccinating against COVID-19, there is a risk that the virus may spread rapidly among people unless it is curbed through immediate and appropriate measures,” WHO regional director Poonam Khetrapal Singh said in a statement.
Yang considered that Pyongyang will have no choice but to accept foreign aid, and said, “Timing will be a key factor. I believe that the outcome of the South Korea-US summit on May 21 will be an important criterion for North Korea to decide whether to accept the offer of assistance from the South. or not”.
US President Joe Biden is visiting Seoul this weekend to meet with Yoon Seok-yeol. The North’s weapons programs and the COVID-19 outbreak are expected to be at the center of the talks.
Despite the health crisis, new satellite images indicate that North Korea has resumed building a nuclear reactor after a prolonged hiatus.
Washington and Seoul suspect Pyongyang is preparing for a nuclear test, which will be its seventh in its history and the first since 2017.
In this context, accepting South Korea’s help in confronting the COVID-19 will make the North Korean regime proud and may push it to abandon this nuclear test, according to Chung Seong-chan.
And he said, “If Kim Jong-un is determined to conduct the test, he will not accept help from South Korea.”