North Korea: Kim Jong Un declares victory over coronavirus – ‘Historic event that shows our greatness’

THE Kim Jong Unannounced yesterday the his country’s “victory” over the new coronavirus pandemic, after about two weeks that no case of patient “with fever” was recorded, in the terminology used by Pyongyang. In the meantime, sister of the young leader, Kim Jo Jong, he said he also had a feverexcepting his efforts and threatening South Korea, in which she blames the outbreak, which according to her came from propaganda leaflets, with “deadly reprisals”, that it will be “eliminated”.

Kim gave order to lift “maximum” deterrence measures of the spread of the pandemic he imposed in May, adding that his country must maintain a “steel barrier” against the epidemic and “intensify the work” to deal with it “until the end of the global health crisis” according to the state news agency KCNA.

North Korea’s leader expressed his satisfaction with the “victory” over the pandemic, “historical event that once again shows the world the greatness of our state, the indomitable perseverance of our people and our national customs that we are proud of,” he was quoted as saying by KCNA.

North Korea, one of the first countries in the world to close its borders in January 2020 after SARS-CoV-2 emerged in neighboring China, has long boasted that it was able to fend off the pandemic. But, as APE-MPE reminds, on May 12, Pyongyang admitted that an outbreak was underway and Kim Jong Un personally took charge of the fight against the pandemic. After July 29, no case of a patient “with fever” has been reported by the North Korean government.

According to the data that has been announced, there have been 4.8 million infections since the end of April but only 74 deaths, in other words the official death rate is 0.002%.

The North Korean hospitals are notorious for chronic lack of equipment etcand the lack of intensive care units. No treatment for COVID-19 is available in the country, nor is there a vaccine.

Neighboring South Korea, with an enviable health system and a high rate of immunization of its population, has a mortality rate of 0.12%.

Experts stress that the official figures announced by Pyongyang are insufficient and unreliable. In the absence of tests, the number of confirmed cases was not even made public.

Kim Jo Yong said that her brother, “even though he was seriously ill, did not rest for a moment” because he “thought of those who had to receive care”. The same accused South Korea of ​​causing the outbreak by dropping propaganda leaflets bearing SARS-CoV-2 into the country.

Such propaganda campaigns were officially banned in 2020, but the leader’s sister accused the government of new conservative President Yoon Sok-gil of planning to abolish it and called it Pyongyang’s “main enemy”.

He threatened that the South Korean government would be “wiped out” with “deadly retaliatory measures.”

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, for its part, expressed regret over “baseless claims” that the outbreak of the pandemic was caused by propaganda material dropped by defectors and North Korea’s “threats”, according to South Korea’s national Yonhap news agency.

Analysts estimate that the the purpose of declaring Pyongyang’s “victory” in the fight against the pandemic is probably to lift the restrictive measures, to restore trade, especially with China, and possibly pave the way for a new nuclear weapon test, the first since 2017.

The World Health Organization is initially skeptical of North Korea’s announcements about the pandemic. In June, he estimated that the situation was probably getting worse, not better as Pyongyang claimed.

“Whatever the truth behind the numbers, this is the story being told to the citizens of North Korea. And at this moment, the numbers tell them that the epidemic is over,” commented Martin Williams of the American think tank 38 North.