NORTH KOREA,12 May : North Korea officially confirmed its first COVID-19 outbreak on Thursday (May 12) and ordered a national lock down, with state media reporting a sub-variant of the highly transmissible Omicron virus had been detected in the city of Pyongyang.
Citing KCNA news agency, there has been the biggest emergency incident in the country, with a hole in our emergency quarantine front, that has been kept secure over the past two years and three months since February 2020.
The report said citizens in Pyongyang had contracted the Omicron variant, without providing details on case numbers or possible sources of infection.
Kim ordered all cities and counties of the country to “strictly lock down” their regions to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 and said emergency reserve medical supplies would be mobilised.
Although the North has never confirmed a single COVID-19 infection in the country, officials in South Korea and the United States have cast doubts, especially as cases of the Omicron variant were widely reported in neighbouring South Korea and China.
Meanwhile, North Korea has declined shipments of vaccine from the COVAX global COVID-19 vaccine-sharing programme and the Sinovac biotech vaccine from China.
Kim told the workers’ party meeting the latest emergency quarantine system’s purpose is to stably control and manage the spread of the COVID-19 and quickly heal infected people to eliminate the source of transmission in the shortest period. – TVS
