North Korea Admits COVID Outbreak For First Time, Declares National Emergency

North Korea, according to the WHO, is one of only two countries that has not vaccinated its people.

Kim Jong-un. Image used for representational purposes only. 

(Photo: NPR)

North Korea declared on Thursday, 12 May, a "severe national emergency" after confirming its case of COVID-19, Reuters reported.

State media reported that a sub-variant of the Omicron virus, known as BA.2, had been detected in the capital, Pyongyang.

“There has been the biggest emergency incident in the country, with a hole in our emergency quarantine front, that has been kept safely over the past two years and three months since February 2020,” the official KCNA news agency said.

All business activities will be organized in a way that each work unit is “isolated” to prevent the spread of COVID, the news agency added.

A strict national lockdown has been initiated. The North Korean population has not been vaccinated at all so far.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently said that the country is one of only two countries that has not vaccinated its people. The other country is Eritrea.

Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to eliminate the virus and has asked fellow citizens “to completely block the spread of the malicious virus by thoroughly blocking their areas in all cities and counties across the country”.

A professor at Ewha University in Seoul, Leif-Eric Easley, has said that the government's public acknowledgment of the presence of COVID meant “the public health situation must be serious,” as reported by The Guardian.

(With inputs from Reuters, The Guardian, and BBC)