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North Korea announces first COVID case, then it skyrockets to 18,000 the next day and all hell breaks loose

May 13, 2022 | | Print Article

North Koreans have reportedly begun contracting the coronavirus, setting the stage for what some “analysts” believe could be massive death and destruction for the Hermit Kingdom in the months ahead.

North Korea initially reported its ostensible first COVID case on Wednesday and announced a country-wide lockdown.

“North Korea on Thursday reported its first outbreak of the coronavirus, declaring a ‘maximum emergency’ and ordering all cities and counties in the nation of 25 million to lock down to fight the spread,” as reported by The New York Times.

A day later, the Hermit Kingdom announced 18,000 new cases.

But the following day on Friday, the real truth began to emerge as The New York Times confirmed that COVID has in fact been spreading “explosively” across the nation since late April, forcing nearly 200,000 people into quarantine and killing at least six.

“Health officials made the rare admission of an emerging public health crisis after the country reported its first outbreak of the virus — after long insisting it had no infections and refusing outside humanitarian aid to fight any spread,” the Times reported.

“The announcement of fatalities came as the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, was visiting the national disease-control headquarters on Thursday. … In a sign of growing urgency, the state-run Central Television for the first time showed Mr. Kim wearing a mask during a Workers’ Party meeting.”

North Korea is reportedly only one of two countries that have chosen not to vaccinate its population. The country also boasts one of the worst — if not the worst — healthcare systems in the world.

“An outbreak of Covid-19 could prove disastrous for North Korea. The country’s dilapidated health care infrastructure is unlikely to be up to the task of treating a large number of patients with a highly infectious disease and the nation is not known to have imported any coronavirus vaccines,” according to CNN.

A report published in The Week seven years ago said that, according to Amnesty International, “health-care standards in the communist country are appallingly low, with hospitals that barely function, operations performed without anesthetic, and rampant disease made worse by malnutrition.”

Based on the state of the country’s healthcare system, analysts expect hell to unfold across North Korea as the months pass.

“We are in the early stage of the spread of vast human misery. The nature and scale of the illnesses, deaths, hunger and starvation can only be established much later,” Lee Sung-yoon, a well-recognized scholar of Korean and East Asian studies, told the Times.

Lina Yoon, a senior Korea researcher for Human Rights Watch, believes the rest of the world should go out of its way to help North Korea.

“North Koreans are chronically malnourished and unvaccinated, there are barely any medicines left in the country, and the health infrastructure is incapable to deal with this pandemic,” she said to the Times.

“The international community should offer medicine for Covid-19 related symptoms, Covid-19 treating anti-viral medicines, and provide vaccines and all necessary infrastructure for vaccine preservation, including fridges, generators and gasoline.”

But on the other hand, according to the Times, of the 350,000 North Koreans who’ve reportedly contracted the virus since April, 162,200 have already “completely recovered.”

In addition, billionaire entrepreneur and investor Bill Gates recently admitted that COVID is less deadly than society had initially believed.

“We didn’t understand that it’s a fairly low fatality rate, and that it’s a disease mainly of the elderly, kind of like the flu,” he said during an interview last week.

To its credit, the Biden administration doesn’t plan to rush to North Korea’s aid.

“The DPRK has repeatedly refused vaccine donations from COVAX. We do not — the United States does not currently have plans to share vaccines with the DPRK. We do continue to support international efforts aimed at the provision of critical humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable North Koreans,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday.

“And this is, of course, a broader part of the DPRK continuing to exploit its own citizens by not accepting this type of aid. As you know, it’s not just vaccines; it’s also a range of humanitarian assistance that could very much help the people in the country. And instead, they divert resources to build their unlawful nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.”

Indeed, after admitting this week that North Koreans have begun contracting COVID, the nation’s government conducted a missile test.

Vivek Saxena
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