On Thursday, North Korea declared its first Covid-19 outbreak and imposed a nationwide curfew, with state media saying that a sub-variant of the highly transmissible Omicron virus had been discovered in Pyongyang.
“The country’s largest emergency crisis occurred in February 2020, with a hole in our emergency quarantine front that has been held secure for the previous two years and three months,” the official KCNA news agency said.
The article said that people in Pyongyang had caught the Omicron variant, but did not provide case numbers or likely infection sources. The samples from the sick patients were taken on May 8, according to the report.
The study was released as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over a Workers’ Party conference to examine the first coronavirus epidemic.
According to KCNA, Kim ordered all towns and counties in the nation to “strictly lock down” their districts in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. He also stated that emergency medical supplies would be mobilised.
Despite the fact that the North has never verified a single coronavirus infection in the nation, officials in South Korea and the United States have expressed reservations, particularly after instances of the Omicron strain were widely reported in neighbouring South Korea and China.
North Korea has rejected vaccine supplies from the COVAX worldwide Covid-19 vaccine-sharing initiative and China’s Sinovac Biotech vaccine.
The goal of the current emergency quarantine system, according to Kim, is to stably control and manage the spread of the coronavirus and fast cure afflicted persons to eliminate the source of transmission in the shortest time possible, according to KCNA.
Residents have been advised to return home and keep indoors because of a “national issue,” according to a website located in South Korea that monitors Pyongyang’s operations.
