In North Korea, a first admission of “flaw” in the face of Covid – Liberation

EpidemicArticle reserved for subscribersTwo and a half years after the start of the pandemic, Kim Jong-un recognized the first case of the omicron variant before ordering a national “strict confinement”. A statement that could prefigure a major health crisis. A strong image, probably to signify the importance if not the gravity of the moment: for the first time since the start of the pandemic, Kim Jong-un appeared masked on North Korean television Thursday. That same day, the authorities recognized their first case of contamination with the omicron BA.2 variant detected on Sunday in several feverish people in the capital Pyongyang. Then, at the end of a political office of the Workers’ Party which recognized “a very serious emergency”, a “flaw” in the “front of epidemic prevention”, the leader ordered a “strict containment ” national. He called on “all cities and counties in the country to carefully lock down their areas and organize work and production after closing every work unit, every production unit and every living unit from each other, so as to to perfectly and flawlessly block the spread of the malicious virus”, as reported by the North Korean Workers’ Party daily Rodong Sinmun. Like Turkmenistan, North Korea had so far not reported any Covid cases from the World Health Organization (WHO). This public and dramatized admission could prefigure a major health crisis in a country that lacks resources and medical infrastructure – especially care units…