North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called for his country to raise its COVID-19 preventive measures to maximum levels as the country announced its first coronavirus infection more than two years into the pandemic. The Korean Central News Agency said Thursday tests from an unspecified number of people in capital Pyongyang confirmed they were infected with the omicron variant. North Korea had claimed a perfect record in keeping out COVID-19 from its territory, though outside experts had doubted that. It had only begun to reopen its border slightly after being closed for two years.
North Korea was one of the last places in the world without an acknowledged virus case. Turkmenistan, a similarly secretive and authoritarian nation in Central Asia, has reported no cases to the World Health Organization, though its claim also is widely doubted by outside experts. In recent months, some Pacific island nations that kept the virus out by their geographic isolation have recorded outbreaks.
North Korea’s previous coronavirus-free claim had been disputed by many foreign experts. But South Korean officials have said North Korea had likely avoided a huge outbreak, in part because it instituted strict virus controls almost from the start of the pandemic. The extreme border closures further shocked an economy already damaged by decades of mismanagement and crippling U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile program, pushing Kim to perhaps the toughest moment of his rule since he took power in 2011.
It’s unusual for North Korea to admit the outbreak of any infectious disease though Kim has occasionally been candid about national and social problems and policy failures.
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