At a time when the planet has already gone through… forty waves of its pandemic coronavirusthe North Korea just three weeks ago announced her first case. Two and a half years after the first case in Wuhan, China, Pyongyang has announced some “fever cases” where it calls them, with the government claiming it has the outbreak under control but the details remain a mystery.
The BBC attempts to unravel the mystery of the pandemic in North Korea through testimonies of people who live there or have relatives in the country but also according to what Pyongyang announces.
Kim Hwang-sun was sitting alone in the kitchen of his Seoul home when his phone rang. He was a Chinese ombudsman and the news was exactly what he expected to hear: his family could talk. Ten years ago, Hwang-sun left North Korea alone. His two children, his grandchildren and his 85-year-old mother were left behind and he has lost all hope of getting them out of the country and reuniting.
These hidden phone calls is the only communication he has with his family and he knows that he should not ask a lot because there is a possibility that they will monitor their calls. Thus, it keeps their conversations short, less than five minutes.
Two days earlier, North Korea had announced the first case of coronavirus. The data released by the government, in an unprecedented move, show that the virus spread rapidly to every province of the country.
“I was told that too many people had contracted a fever. I have a feeling that things were really bad. They say that everyone had taken to the streets and asked anyone they met if they had any medicine. “Everyone is looking for something to lower the fever and they can’t find anything,” Hwang-sun told the British Media.
Of course, he did not dare to ask how many people died because he feared that if anyone listened to them talk, he would be considered a critic of the government and his family would be in danger.
According to official data released by the government, about 15% of the population has contracted a “fever”
THE Kim Jong Un admitted that there is a shortage of drugs and ordered the army to distribute its reserves. Hospitals and pharmacies in North Korea have not had drugs for years, says Hwang-sun. Doctors write a prescription and it is up to the patient to find what he needs and buy iteither from someone who sells directly from their home, or from a local market.
“If someone needs an anesthetic for an operation, they have to go to the market to get it and then take it to the hospital. “But now the market sellers do not have drugs either,” he explains.
«The government is telling citizens to boil pine leaves and drink themHis family told him. State news bulletins also advised to make people gargle with salt water to relieve symptoms.
«This happens when there are no drugs. They turn to traditional medicineSays Dr. Nagi Shafik, who has been working for Unicef in the villages of North Korea since 2001. When he was last there, in 2019, the drugs were already in short supply. “There were some, but very, very few,” he says.
Almost all drugs in North Korea are imported from China and in the last two years since the border was closed, this supply has stopped.
The national lockdown – “People collapsed in their homes because they had nothing to eat”
On the day the first case of coronavirus in North Korea was announced, the government imposed a national lockdown. This created fears that people, who could not get food, would starve. At least some people seem to have been able to leave their homes to work and grow food.
Pictures taken across the border in South Korea by NK News show land workers in the fields in the days following the lockdown but in areas with many cases, including the capital Pyongyang, people appear to have locked in their homes.
Lee Sang-yong runs the Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that has a network of imgs in North Korea. In the Chinese border town of Hyesan, he says people were not allowed to leave their homes for 10 days in May. When the lockdown ended, according to a img cited, more than a dozen people were found to have collapsed inside their homes because they had nothing to eat.
So far, only 70 deaths have been officially reported in North Korea. This puts the country’s mortality rate at 0.002%, the lowest in the world.
«For a country with a poor health care system where no one is vaccinated, these numbers do not make senseSays Martyn Williams, who monitors data for the 38 North platform.
He also points out the following paradox: deaths peaked while coronavirus cases continued to rise. “In the coronavirus we know that deaths tend to follow cases for two to three weeks. Therefore, we know that these data are wrong, but we do not know why “, he explains.
Williams reports that Local health officials may be reluctant to admit how many people have died for fear of being punished.
First orders from abroad in masks and respirators since the beginning of the pandemic
In the last week, the number of reported new cases has decreased, while a major article in the country’s state newspaper states that the authorities have “suppressed and controlled the spread of the virus.”
In a briefing to the World Health Organization on Wednesday, Dr Mike Ryan said he feared the situation was “getting worse instead of better”. He said North Korea had not given the agency access to its data, making it “very difficult to provide a proper analysis of the world”. He also said that they had been offered several times to send vaccines and help but North Korea seems to be silently relying on its neighbor China to get it out of its predicament.
Chinese customs data show that imports from China doubled from March to April and in recent months sudden increase in imported medical supplies. In April, North Korea imported 1,000 respirators from China – the first batch since the pandemic began, and from January to April, the country also bought more than 9 million masks. There has also been an increase in imported drugs and vaccines.
Kim Hwang-sun had no news from his family after that first phone call. Ever since the pandemic broke out, he says it is much harder to find them. Telephone signals are often blocked and when he manages to communicate from time to time, communication is often interrupted.
He is worried about what may have happened to his 85-year-old mother but he can not learn anything and so yesterday he climbed to the top of a mountain and prayed for her. That’s all it can do. Like the rest of the world, he is in the dark and can not help.
Source: News Beast
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