North Korea In Extremis

"If senior elites start dying en masse -- there are quite a lot of them, and we don't know if they are vaccinated -- if many of them die of it, there may be questions asked about why North Korea didn't vaccinate earlier,"

"It is going to test his [Kim's] leadership, and it is going to create some urgency for very creative storytelling in the North Korean propaganda apparatus."

"We've seen Kim Jong Un crying about the nation's sacrifices (in the past) -- I think this is the type of thing he may do to try dampen outrage."

"North Korean citizens have definitely been through a lot. The first thing he could do is really apologize and take some blame for it."

"We know that they flew in citizens from across North Korea to attend and celebrate that event [last month's military parade], That's the perfect petri dish for this virus to spread, so I think that parade will go down in history as a very bad idea for North Korea."

Chad O'Carroll, managing director, Seoul-based NK News outlet

In photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is shown attends a meeting of ruling party members on May 17, 2022   AP

"The fact that Kim Jong Un has decided to come out and publicly announce this health crisis is quite telling," 

"[It] may have a political element, obviously."

Lina Yoon, senior Korea researcher, Human Rights Watch

 

"There is no evidence to show that North Korea has access to enough vaccines to protect its population from COVID-19."

"With the first official news of a COVID-19 outbreak in the country, continuing on this path could cost many lives and would be an unconscionable dereliction of upholding the right to health."

Boram Jang, researcher, Amnesty International East Asia 

 

"There's no good option."

"But there are things that can be done that can begin to ameliorate some of the worse consequences if they're done quickly."

J. Stephen Morrison, director, Center on Global Health Policy, Center for Strategic and International Studies

It took North-Korea-watchers by surprise to see and hear the leader of the hermit kingdom publicly admit his country is in for a really rough ride, lamenting the fact that COVID-19 finally infiltrated the country despite Kin Jong Un's approach to total closure of his country to outside penetration, taking his cue from Chin's 'Zero COVID' approach in defense against SARS-CoV-2. Reliance in North Korea appears to have been based solely on its closed border, to keep COVID at bay.

 

Although North Korea should have been and was designated as a prime country to claim participation in the UN-sponsored global vaccine sharing program, COVAX, North Korean leadership expressed no interest, much less desire to take advantage of the opportunity to bring in vaccines for a country-wide vaccination campaign. And nor has the country invested in lab testing for COVID.

 

Its population, in a country where medical facilities are at best functioning at a low level, has been left vulnerable to a raging wave of the infectious Omicron variety of COVID. Out of the total population of 25 million people, a week ago the recorded coronavirus case load reached 2 million. This, in a society with zero-level vaccines, poor medical infrastructure and strained/limited ties to the global health community. In the past that has been North Korea's choice, to maintain a distance.

 

The country now, however faces a crisis situation with its population vulnerable to a galloping virus taking full advantage of a population unprepared to face a pandemic. Health experts weigh its chances from afar; where it could be prevailed upon to accept donations of antiviral treatments and protective medical gear for its health workers to slow down the outbreak, protecting those most in need of shelter from the ravages of the virus. Whether North Korea would accept international offers, is another thing. It has failed to the present to respond to a U.S. offer of assistance.

 

North Korea in the past several years steadfastly refused many offers of coronavirus vaccine in preference to shuttering its borders to the world, a choice that is now seen to have failed spectacularly. Leading experts to give warning that the death toll in the country could reach and exceed 100,000. And within that unvaccinated population lies the prospect of fertile ground for the virus to further mutate into other, perhaps more virulent strains.

 

North Korea last month staged a massive military parade in Pyongyang. The fast spreading BA.2 subvariant of Omicron has been identified in the country. At this juncture late in the game, vaccines that might have been useful in preventing a crisis on this scale cannot now be administered swiftly enough and sufficiently broadly to halt the viral spread. 

There appears to be one country only that North Korea pays heed to, and that is China. Flights have resumed between China and North Korea this week for the first time in several years, with observers speculating that they carry badly needed emergency health supplies for a country that locked itself into a hapless situation of wide-open opportunity for a ravenous virus.

North Korean military personnel have been mobilized to assist in the distribution of medical supplies as Pyongyang grapples with high Covid case numbers.

"It looks really bad, They are facing the rampant spread of Omicron without protection from vaccines, without much – if any – immunity in the population and without access to most of the drugs that have been used to treat COVID elsewhere."

"I’m sure the North Koreans will still be very wary of accepting major international aid and going back to the situation of the 1990s, when there were multiple different aid agencies operating in the country and this was felt by the leadership to be humiliating and potentially destabilising."

Owen Miller, lecturer in Korean studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University