North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has claimed he has been helping workers by sharing his own medical supplies and enabling them to “rise like a phoenix” from the country’s Covid crisis.
North Korea is in the midst of a Covid outbreak, having reportedly registered its first case as recently as May 12 this year, despite the disease having spread widely in the rest of the world for the past two years.
But although officials in the isolated country revealed nearly 220,000 more people were found with febrile symptoms and a mostly unvaccinated population, the North Korean leader has claimed progress.
Kim is reportedly considering easing virus restrictions to nurture a struggling economy, and news outlets in the country said the North Korean leader has shared his own medical supplies with farmers to help fight the virus.
Local newspaper reports said farm workers in South Hwanghae province were striving to achieve “miraculous results” growing rice to pay Kim back, and described how their leader has donated his personal medical supplies to help with anti-virus efforts affecting workers according to the newspaper allowed ‘soar like a phoenix’.
The outbreak has raised concerns about serious tragedy in the poor, isolated country with one of the world’s worst health systems and a high tolerance for civilian suffering.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has claimed he has been helping workers during the country’s Covid crisis by sharing his own medical supplies. Pictured: Kim Jong Un at a meeting on May 21, 2022
Experts say North Korea is almost certainly downplaying the true extent of the virus’ spread, including an oddly low death toll, to soften the political blow against Kim as he navigates the most difficult moment of his decade of rule.
Around 219,030 North Koreans with a fever were identified in the 24 hours to 6 p.m. Friday, the fifth consecutive daily increase of around 200,000, according to North Korea’s Central News Agency, which attributed the information to the government’s anti-virus headquarters.
North Korea said more than 2.4 million people have fallen ill and 66 people have died since an unidentified fever spread rapidly in late April, although the country has only been able to identify a handful of those cases as Covid-19 due to a shortage of testing supplies .
After two and a half years of maintaining a dubious claim that it perfectly blocked the virus from entering its territory, the North admitted Omicron infections last week.
The North has mobilized more than a million health workers to find people with fevers and isolate them in quarantine facilities.
Kim also imposed severe restrictions on inter-city travel and mobilized thousands of troops to help transport medicines to pharmacies in the country’s capital, Pyongyang, which has been the center of the outbreak.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) pays his respects to Marshal of the Korean People’s Army Hyon Chol Hae, adviser-general of DPRK’s Defense Ministry, in Pyongyang
During a meeting of the ruling party’s political bureau on Saturday, Kim insisted the country is starting to bring the outbreak under control and called for heightened vigilance to maintain the “affirmative trend” in the antivirus campaign, KCNA said.
But Kim also appeared to be hinting at relaxing his response to the pandemic to ease its economic woes, directing officials to actively change the country’s preventive measures based on the changing virus situation and to draw up various plans to revive the national economy.
KCNA said Politburo members debated ways to “design and implement more effectively” the government’s antivirus policy, consistent with the way the spread of the virus was “stably controlled and contained,” but the report did not specify what was discussed.
While allegedly enforcing “maximum” preventive measures, Kim also stressed that his economic goals should still be met, and state media reported that large groups of workers continued to gather at farms, mining plants, power plants and construction sites.
Experts say Kim cannot afford to shut down the country, which would deliver another shock to a fragile economy marred by decades of mismanagement, crippling US-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons ambitions and pandemic border closures.
The virus hasn’t stopped Kim from holding and attending important public events for his leadership.
State media showed him crying during the state funeral for senior North Korean military official Hyon Chol Hae, who is believed to have been involved in training Kim as a future leader during his father Kim Jong Il’s rule.