The North Korean fortress has succumbed. After almost two and a half years of a pandemic without reporting a single case, Pyongyang announced this Thursday that the omicron variant has slipped through its hermetic borders and is already adding its first infections. As a consequence, they have declared a state of “maximum emergency” in a country that to date has not made public any vaccination plan or reported a single inoculation among its 25 million inhabitants.
According to the state agency KCNA, the authorities concluded that the samples collected on Sunday from people with fever in the capital are consistent with the omicron variant, although they did not specify the number of cases or the possible source of infection. The regime made the announcement after some foreign media reported that a lockdown had been decreed in the city on Monday.
In a meeting of the Politburo of the Workers’ Party chaired by its leader, Kim Jong Un, a “gap” in his defenses was recognized and he criticized “the carelessness, laxity, irresponsibility and incompetence” of those responsible for the system, “who did not They have been able to respond successfully to the growing volume of infections” worldwide. At the meeting, Kim adopted a resolution to transition to a “maximum emergency” anti-epidemic system.
Following the appearance of the first cases of coronavirus in Wuhan, China, in early 2020, North Korea reacted almost immediately by further closing its already hermetic borders and isolating itself from the rest of the world.
The government issued an order to shoot anyone who came near the border and cut off trade with China, its most important ally and partner, which represents more than 90% of its trade. Although in recent months a temporary reopening of some rail services was ordered to receive supplies again, last week it was suspended again due to the outbreaks that plague the neighboring country.
In this time, the country has never recognized a single contagion and has refused to accept two shipments with medicines manufactured by AstraZeneca and Sinovac within the COVAX international vaccine distribution program. Together with Eritrea, it is the only country in the world that has never reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) not a single inoculation in its territory.
The lack of immunization, its precarious health system – it barely has hospitals and ambulances outside the capital and some other cities – and the strict controls now applied worry experts and humanitarian organizations, who fear the serious health and food effects that the population may suffer. local population.
Analysts such as Chad O’Carroll, founder of the specialized media outlet NK News, warned today on Twitter about the country’s lack of capacity to test – 64,200 tests have been carried out during the pandemic -, the difficulties that the population may have to stock up in case of strict confinement or the problems that the lack of personnel can cause in the fields, vital for feeding the population.
“This is terrible news for North Koreans and we could be on the brink of the worst Covid crisis in the world. There is little that can be done in the short term to control it beyond an aggressive blockade, but from the experience of Shanghai (China) we know the limits of that approach, ”he assured.
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