North Korea's first official COVID-19 epidemic resulted in 18,820 new instances of fever and no new deaths, according to state media on Monday, as authorities maintain that infections in the impoverished country are under control.
During the first official outbreak, the country reported more than 4.6 million episodes of fever, but authorities have not divulged how many of those individuals tested positive for the coronavirus. On Friday, authorities reported slightly over 23,100 instances of fever, the third day in a row that the number of infections reported fell below 30,000.Pyongyang had claimed to be COVID-19-free before admitting the outbreak in mid-May, a claim that many observers questioned given the coronavirus's high transmissibility and the country's extensive land border with China.
Despite rampant starvation and a failing healthcare system, the secretive regime led by third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un has resisted outside assistance, including vaccinations.
The World Health Organization has questioned North Korea's claim that the outbreak is winding down, saying that cases are being underreported and the situation could worsen. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as it is officially known, has reported only 73 deaths so far, significantly less than one might expect from an outbreak involving millions of infections.
It also reported an epidemic of an unnamed gastrointestinal sickness in the country's southwest last week, which was suspected to be cholera or typhoid.Tim Peters, the founder of the Seoul-based assistance organization Helping Hands Korea Seoul, believes North Korea is likely underplaying the severity of the country's problems.
"What else could the sudden 4.6 million fevers since the DPRK admitted COVID cases in mid-May be?" "The authorities there have every cause to be concerned that their frail medical system will be swamped by a tsunami of cases," Peters said Al Jazeera.
"We at HHK have been fighting tooth and nail to get medicines to the North since early this year, but officials there keep on shooting themselves in the foot by stonewalling any critical delivery." More proof, if any were needed, that the health and welfare of North Korean workers is far from a top priority, as awful as that fact is."
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