North Korea had never acknowledged a COVID-19 infection before Thursday, but South Korean and US authorities have speculated that there may have been previous instances given the isolated country’s commerce and travel with China before sealing its border to stop the virus in early 2020.
“A gap has formed in our emergency epidemic prevention front that had been strongly defended till now,” the official KCNA news agency reported.
The first public admission of COVID-19 infections shows the risk of a catastrophic disaster in a country with limited medical resources that has denied international vaccine assistance and closed its borders.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), no instances of Covid-19 have been documented as of March, and no public record of any North Koreans having been vaccinated.
Per the KCNA, tests obtained on May 8 from persons suffering from fevers in Pyongyang revealed a sub-variant of the Omicron virus, commonly known as BA.2. It didn’t specify how many cases there were or who could have been the source.
North Korea has enforced a stay-at-home order since Tuesday, according to Chinese state television, citing “suspected flu symptoms” among certain citizens.
The leader Kim Jong Un called a meeting of the governing Workers’ Party’s powerful politburo, ordering a national “tight lockdown” and the deployment of emergency medical reserves.
