More than 1.7 million cases, and the anger of Kim Jong-un. Chairing a Party meeting on Tuesday, the North Korean leader said there was “a lack of maturity in the state’s ability to deal with the crisis” and criticized “the non-positive attitude, the softness and the inactivity of senior state officials”affirmed, Wednesday, May 18, the official agency KCNA.
North Korea has recorded 232,880 new cases of ” fever “ Tuesday evening, bringing the total toll to 1.72 million cases and 62 deaths, according to the same source. At the meeting on Tuesday, Kim Jong-un promised to “waking up the whole Party like an active volcano” to counter the spread of the virus.
Since the country announced its first case of Covid-19 last Thursday, the leader has taken personal responsibility for the fight against the epidemic, which he says is causing “great upheavals” in the country. He notably ordered a national confinement, his population not being vaccinated, and deployed the army to help fight against the coronavirus.
WHO calls unanswered
the army “Urgently deployed its mighty forces to all pharmacies in Pyongyang city and began to supply medicine as part of a round-the-clock service”said KCNA.
The World Health Organization (WHO), however, expressed concern on Tuesday about the havoc the Omicron variant can wreak on the unvaccinated population of North Korea, and reiterated its offer of assistance ranging from vaccines to medical equipment. . For now, the Pyongyang authorities do not seem to have responded to these calls.
North Korea’s healthcare system was ranked 193and out of 195 countries by a study by the American Johns Hopkins University in 2021. The country’s hospitals are notoriously under-equipped, with few intensive care units. According to experts, the country has no treatment for Covid-19 and does not have the capacity to massively test its population.