North Korea has reported its first death from COVID-19. The news comes a day after the country acknowledged an outbreak of the virus for the first time in this worldwide crisis — ordering a lockdown. The state media says six people have died from a fever, that’s been spreading fast nationwide. It’s confirmed one of them had tested positive for the coronavirus’ Omicron variant. It’s also released this photo of leader Kim Jong Un at the emergency epidemic prevention headquarters. The country previously claimed to have had zero infections, during the pandemic. It’s refused international help with vaccinations and has kept its borders closed.
North korea has reported its first death from covet 19. the news comes a day after the country acknowledged an outbreak of the virus for the first time in this worldwide crisis ordering a lockdown the state media says six people have died from a fever that’s been spreading fast nationwide it’s confirmed one of them had tested positive for the coronavirus omicron
Variant it’s also released this photo of leader kim jong-un at the emergency epidemic prevention headquarters the country had previously claimed to have had zero infections during the pandemic it’s refused international help with vaccinations and has kept its borders closed well i’m joined by correspondent josh smith in seoul south korea uh not so far from this
Very secretive nation but tell us a bit more about what’s going on or what you can tell us considering that officially covert is now starting to take its toll in north korea about two and a half years into this pandemic that’s right it is quite a startling admission by the government there uh there have long been suspicions that there uh that it was unlikely that
North korea would entirely escape this global pandemic and now we have the first official confirmation from the government that there are indeed cases there as you mentioned though even the the death numbers that they’ve released so far uh do show uh the the amount of confusion uh uh over exactly what’s going on there this kind of unknown fever that they say um uh
Infected at least 350 000 people so far just in recent weeks but they haven’t released total covet case numbers and experts we talked to said that that shows perhaps a weakness in in their capabilities and able to test the sheer number of people with symptoms uh there right now and so i think going forward there’s going to continue to be questions over uh not only
The numbers but also uh their capability and being able to uh help people and prevent widespread deaths josh just how bad do you think this outbreak could get considering such a poor health care system no vaccines and sanctions on top of that so north korea uh has a a relatively high number of educated uh doctors and staff and a health care system that given its
Uh you know authoritarian nature of the the government can be very quickly mobilized and deployed around the country however they have chronic shortages of supplies medicines equipment all of that which is why experts say that it’s so critical that they do open their doors uh to some aid now in recent months uh there has been a trickle of aid we understand that’s
Come in from some international organizations there um going through that very tight border lockdown that you uh mentioned before however there’s been no sign of vaccines uh which have been key to keeping at least the the death rates lower around the world and are seen as key to allowing uh north korea to eventually uh open up and protect its already uh battered
Economy do you think north korea will eventually have to open up and in effect open itself to outside scrutiny uh there are uh some observers who looked at this kind of uh rather unprecedented state media coverage of this first outbreak as a possible sign that north korea is moving towards that that they’re getting ready to potentially accept some of this aid
Um they’ve already opened their borders slightly relative to what they had before again in a an impairment apparent acknowledgement that they do need to ease some of the controls that they have had there um and so there is an optimistic view that hopefully they are uh now with the scale of this spread uh going to open up to some of that aid that will allow them
To uh live with kovid as the rest of the world is journalist josh smith in seoul south korea thank you very much
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North Korea reports first official COVID-19 death | DW News By DW News