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State media said Kim warned against a hasty relaxation of the restrictions
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has praised his country’s “brilliant success” in dealing with Covid-19, according to state news agency KCNA.
Speaking at a politburo meeting, Kim said the country had “prevented the entry of the malignant virus and maintained a stable situation.”
North Korea closed its borders and isolated thousands six months ago when the virus spread worldwide.
He claims he has no virus cases, although analysts say this is unlikely.
Kim is said to have “discussed in detail the six-month-long national emergency epidemic work” at a meeting of the politburo on Thursday. He said the success in handling the virus was “achieved by the forward-thinking leadership of the Party’s Central Committee.”
But he stressed the importance of maintaining “maximum alertness without … relaxation on the epidemic front,” adding that the virus was still present in neighboring countries.
“He repeatedly warned that hasty relief from anti-epidemic measures will provoke an unimaginable and unrecoverable crisis,” the KCNA report said on Friday.
Has the coronavirus spread through North Korea? No one really knows. The country has been closed since January 30. Very few people have entered or left.
The International Federation of Red Cross had volunteers in the border area working on virus prevention measures and there have been a number of unconfirmed reports of cases within the country.
But most accounts of life in the capital in recent weeks seem to show that life goes on as normal.
Whatever the reality of the situation, Pyongyang wants to appear confident that it has crushed Covid-19.
Nationally, this is a strong message that Kim Jong-un’s stringent measures to keep the virus at bay have worked.
The rest of the world may be in the middle of a pandemic, and Kim wants her people to know that she has saved them from that.
But it has come at a cost. All border traffic has been cut. This means that obtaining essential supplies in the impoverished state has been impossible.
Diplomatic sources have told me that there are stocks of PPE and medical supplies, including vaccines stockpiled at the border that cannot pass.
There were numerous reports of panic purchases of international products in department stores in Pyongyang. Shelves that are stripped as a product are restricted.
It’s also worth noting that only 12 defectors have arrived in South Korea between April and June this year, the lowest number on record.
The people of North Korea may not be suffering from coronaviruses, but they are now even more isolated from the outside world.
Mandatory masks in North Korea
In late January, North Korea moved quickly against the virus, sealing its borders and then quarantining hundreds of foreigners in the capital Pyongyang.
It also placed tens of thousands of its own citizens in isolation and closed schools.
North Korea has reopened schools, but has banned public gatherings and forced people to wear masks in public places, a Reuters report on July 1 said, citing a World Health Organization official. .
The WHO also reported that the country has now examined the virus in only 922 people, all of whom have tested negative.
North Korea, which shares a long border with China, has long maintained that it has not suffered a single case of the virus.
- Skepticism about North Korea’s claim to be virus free
However, Oliver Hotham, editor-in-chief of the specialized news site NK News, told the BBC earlier this year that this was probably not true.
“It is highly unlikely that he has seen no cases because it borders China and South Korea.” [Especially with China]given the amount of cross-border trade … I really don’t see how it is possible that they could have prevented it, “he said.
“[But] they really took precautions early [so] I think they may have prevented a full outbreak. “
