DTwo years after contaminating the rest of the world, Covid-2019 arrived in North Korea. In any case, this is what Pyongyang announced through its official press on Thursday, May 12. Authorities have called this first case of infection a “serious national emergency”. This first case, detected during tests carried out on Sunday in Pyongyang on sick and feverish people, “corresponds” to the highly transmissible Omicron variant, said the official KCNA agency.
The country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, announced the establishment of an “extreme emergency” virus control system after a politburo crisis meeting. “The objective was to eliminate the root as soon as possible,” said the leader quoted by the state agency KCNA. “He assured us that, because of the strong political consciousness of the population […]we will surely overcome the emergency and succeed with the emergency quarantine project,” the news agency clarified.
Generalized containment throughout the country
Kim Jong-un called for stricter border control as well as containment measures, asking residents to “completely prevent the spread of the malicious virus by completely locking down their neighborhoods in all cities and counties across the country”, according to KCNA. All productive and commercial activities will be organized so that each work unit is “isolated” to prevent the spread of the virus, he added. The North Korean dictator subsequently decreed a general confinement throughout the country.
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China offered Thursday to help North Korea fight the coronavirus, after Pyongyang announced the first case of contamination on its soil. Since the start of the pandemic, initially detected in China at the end of 2019, the North Korean regime had rejected offers of vaccination from China, but also from Russia and the World Health Organization (WHO). “As a comrade, neighbor and friend, China is ready to extend its full support and assistance to (North Korea) in its fight against the epidemic”, assured the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian.