North Korea reported this Thursday that six people have died from covid-19 and that thousands would be infected a day after the regime reported the detection of its first cases of coronavirus since the pandemic began.
North Koreaa country that has not administered a single vaccine against COVID-19, reported today that six people have died from the pathogen and that thousands would be infected a day after the regime reported the detection of its first cases of coronavirus since the pandemic started.
The KCNA agency reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the national epidemic emergency center on Thursday. and said that, “since the end of April, a fever of unknown origin has spread explosively throughout the country, resulting in some 350,000 cases of fever in a short time, of which some 162,200 have been successfully treated.”
Kim added that just the day before, 18,000 new cases of these fevers were detected and that “so far about 187,000 people have been quarantined and are being treated and six have died.”
North Korea reported on Thursday the confirmation of the first cases of coronavirus in the country after testing a group of people in Pyongyang in which the highly contagious BA.2 omicron variant was detected and that the authorities have decreed the “emergency maximum” health.
Kim himself urged at a politburo meeting “all cities and counties in the country to completely lock down their areas.”
The situation is worrying because of how contagious the detected variant has proven to be and the fact that the country, which has been isolated from the outside since 2020, has rejected the donation of almost five million doses of vaccines by the COVAX mechanismhas not put a single puncture and does not yet have a national inoculation plan.
Added to this is the scarcity of medical resources and a testing capacity that is considered scarce (up to March the regime reported having tested only 64,207 people, 0.5% of its population).
The information on deaths and possible infections comes hours after White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a news conference that the US currently has no plans to deliver vaccines to North Korea.
Psaki also insisted that Pyongyang, which hours after announcing its first cases of COVID-19 launched short-range missiles on Thursday, appears to be preparing for a nuclear test – the first since 2017 – that it could carry out this month to coincide with the visit of the US president, Joe Biden, to Seoul, where he will travel on May 20.