[North Korea has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep covid-19 at bay, closing its border with China to people and most goods shortly after the pandemic broke out last year, clearly fearing that a serious outbreak could overwhelm the country’s ailing health care system.]
By Simon Denyer
But health experts said information
was too sketchy to draw any immediate conclusions about whether the coronavirus
had entered the country.
North Korea has gone to
extraordinary lengths to keep covid-19 at bay, closing its border with China to
people and most goods shortly after the pandemic broke out last year, clearly
fearing that a serious outbreak could overwhelm the country’s ailing health
care system.
It has not announced any confirmed
cases of covid-19, a claim backed by the World Health Organization (WHO) but
questioned by U.S. and South Korean officials.
However, the border closure
lockdown has been severely damaging for North Korea’s own economy, fueling the
worst economic crisis in two decades that has left many ordinary people
struggling and hungry.
State media did not specify what
had happened.
“By neglecting important decisions
of the party in its national emergency antivirus fight in preparations for a
global health crisis, officials in charge have caused a grave incident that
poses a huge crisis to the safety of the nation and its people,” the Korea
Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying.
Kim had called a meeting of the
Politburo of the ruling Workers’ Party on Tuesday to address some officials’
neglect of duty, including failing to implement important long-term measures
to fight the pandemic, KCNA said.
Several Politburo members,
secretaries of the central committee, and officials of several state agencies
were replaced at the meeting, KCNA reported.
Shortly after the pandemic spread
through China at the start of 2020, North Korea closed its border, cutting off
its own economic lifeline, placed foreigners under effective house arrest and
severely restricted domestic travel.
As a result, information about the
pandemic has been extremely hard to come by, although unconfirmed reports of
areas placed under lockdowns and quarantine last year fueled suspicion that
some cases might have emerged.
Last July, North Korea did declare
a state of emergency and locked down the border city of Kaesong after a former
defector crossed back into the country from South Korea with suspected symptoms
of covid-19, although tests were reported to have been inconclusive.
Yet the ruling party continues to
hold events and meetings, with officials regularly seen without face masks,
suggesting the pandemic has largely been kept at bay. The border with China had
even begun to open to trade again in recent months, before clamping shut again
more recently.
According to the WHO’s latest report issued this month, over 30,000
people have been tested for the coronavirus in North Korea, and all the results
were negative.
But that success has come at a huge
price for the economy. Earlier this month, Kim warned that the country's food
situation had become “tense,” amid
mounting reports of shortages.
“Reading between the lines, my
sense is senior official(s) may have turned a blind eye to some illegal border
activities (smuggling or trade),” Chad O’Carroll, the founder of the NK News
service tweeted. “Somehow, this may have led to COVID-19
exposure (not necessarily infection).”
“This might be why DPRK borders
mysteriously closed again.” he added, using the acronym for the country’s
official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Min Joo Kim in Seoul contributed to
this report.
Read more
North
Korea’s Kim calls food situation ‘tense’ as reports of shortages mount
N
Korea’s economy is ravaged by sanctions and pandemic isolation. Kim is lashing
out.
Kim
appears to have lost some weight — and that could have geopolitical
consequences
