North Korea has long claimed to be free of Corona. After more than 800,000 cases of illness and 42 deaths, the isolated country finally has to admit the outbreak. Cities and provinces are completely sealed off.
Against the background of the admitted corona outbreak, North Korea has reported 15 new deaths and almost 300,000 other fever patients. Without naming the disease directly, North Korea initially continued to speak of the spread of the epidemic. The number of dead had risen to 42, the state-controlled media reported. More than half of the 820,000 fever-related illnesses across the country have recovered.
According to reports, North Korea has so far mobilized almost 1.45 million people to fight the epidemic. They are supposed to pass on hygiene information and examine people. They would have to ensure that everyone with a fever and other “unusual symptoms” is quarantined and treated there. Since Thursday morning, “all provinces, cities and counties in the country have been completely sealed off in accordance with the party and government’s emergency measures,” it said.
How many of the fever cases are actually due to corona disease remained unclear. Experts suspect that North Korea does not have the capacity to conduct mass tests. The largely isolated and authoritarian country officially confirmed infections with the pathogen on Thursday for the first time since the outbreak of the corona pandemic.
On Thursday, North Korea initially spoke of an undetermined number of residents in the capital Pyongyang who had contracted the corona virus. A day later, it was said that the virus had spread across the country. Six people with fever died and the omicron subvariant BA.2 was detected in one victim. North Korea had long claimed to be corona-free. The information was doubted abroad.
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