Kim Jong Un warns of grave covid-19 situation in North Korea
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3 min read . Updated: 30 Jun 2021, 05:50 PM IST - Leader doesn’t specify what has gone wrong, but blames top officials for missteps
Kim Jong Un said North Korea’s Covid-19 situation has become grave and admonished senior officials for lapses in the fight against the disease.
Mr. Kim, speaking at a Politburo meeting, didn’t specify what had gone wrong. North Korea has reported zero Covid-19 cases and tested more than 31,000 individuals, according to the World Health Organization’s latest figures.
But Mr. Kim accused officials of neglecting their duties to execute the country’s countermeasures to fight Covid-19, which caused an unspecified “crucial case," according to a North Korean state-media report published on Wednesday. He also pointed to the “lack of ability and irresponsibility of cadres." He blamed them for poor decision-making on scientific, technological and institutional fronts.
The combined failures have created a “great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people," Mr. Kim was quoted as saying.
If health conditions inside North Korea have worsened, Mr. Kim is likely to be looking for scapegoats and may be seeking political cover for accepting Covid-19 vaccines from overseas, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
“This may provide Pyongyang justification for demanding that citizens hunker down more, but it could also be political preparation for accepting vaccines from abroad," Mr. Easley said.
North Korea is unusually vulnerable to the pandemic, owing to poor healthcare infrastructure and widespread malnourishment. It was one of the first countries to react to Covid-19, shutting down its borders in January 2020. The country has yet to receive any of the nearly two million Covid-19 vaccines promised by the Covax initiative, a program financed mostly by Western governments to help lower-income countries with inoculations. In recent weeks, the Kim regime has warned of a protracted fight against the virus and bolstered its emergency countermeasures.
During the pandemic’s early months last year, international aid groups had supplied North Korea with testing equipment, safety gear and other materials. But Pyongyang’s main response has been isolation. Most foreign embassies have closed, while nearly all relief groups have left. The borders remain closed.
Mr. Kim is facing the toughest domestic crisis of his nearly decadelong reign. He has warned of potential food shortages. The country’s economy has sputtered as cross-border trade halted over pandemic fears. Pyongyang has also brushed off the Biden administration’s outreach to revisit nuclear talks that could relax sanctions.
North Korea has projected an image of a successful fight against Covid-19. A military parade last fall featured tens of thousands of maskless spectators, including Mr. Kim himself. Even large Workers’ Party meetings held indoors this year have packed attendees close together with rarely a face mask in sight.
The claim of zero cases has been viewed skeptically by those familiar with North Korea’s outdated healthcare infrastructure. In December, South Korea’s then-foreign minister said an absence of cases inside North Korea was hard to believe. That drew swift recrimination from Kim Yo Jong, the dictator’s sister, who called the remarks reckless.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text
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