Kim Jong Un pushes anti-virus efforts
Self-imposed lockdown hurts battered economy
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un urged officials to maintain alertness against the coronavirus, warning that complacency risked “unimaginable and irretrievable crisis,” state media said Friday.
Despite the warning, Kim reaffirmed North Korea’s claim to not have had a single case of COVID-19, telling a ruling party meeting Thursday that the country has “thoroughly prevented the inroad of the malignant virus” despite the worldwide health crisis, the Korean Central News Agency said.
Outsiders widely doubt North Korea escaped the pandemic entirely, given its poor health infrastructure and close trade and travel ties to China, where the coronavirus emerged late last year.
Describing its anti-virus efforts as a “matter of national existence,” North Korea earlier this year shut down nearly all cross-border traffic.
Experts say the country’s self-imposed lockdown is hurting an economy already battered by stringent U.s.-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The KCNA report said Kim during the politburo meeting of the Workers’ Party “stressed the need to maintain maximum alert without a slight self-complacence or relaxation” as the virus continues to spread in neighboring countries. The agency said Kim sharply criticized inattentiveness among officials and violations of emergency anti-virus rules and warned that a “hasty relief of anti-epidemic measures will result in unimaginable and irretrievable crisis.”
The North’s official Rodong Sinmun newspaper published several photos of Kim at the meeting, which were the first state media images of him in weeks. Neither Kim nor the ruling party officials who participated were wearing masks.
In its weekly updates to the World Health Organization, North Korea’s Ministry of Public Health said the country has tested 922 people for the coronavirus as of June 19 and that all of the results were negative, according to Edwin Salvador, WHO’S representative to the North.
In an email sent to The Associated Press, Salvador said North Korea told the WHO it has so far released 25,551 people from quarantine and that as many as 255 people remain isolated. In other developments:
The World Health Organization’s emergencies chief said “we need to put up a fight now” during a peak in the current wave of the coronavirus pandemic — rather than focusing on when a second wave might come. Dr. Michael Ryan said the world will be much better at fighting a second wave if people can learn the lessons of fighting the first wave.
Boris Johnson wants a haircut and a beer. Like millions of other Britons, the prime minister will be able to have a trim and a tipple on Saturday, when England reopens restaurants, pubs and hairdressers, along with secular and sacred venues including cinemas and churches. Britain is also opening up to travel, announcing Friday that it will scrap a requirement for people arriving from dozens of countries to spend 14 days in isolation. Starting July 10, quarantine will be lifted for arrivals from countries deemed “lower risk” for the coronavirus, including Australia, Japan, France, Spain, Germany and Italy — but not the United States.
Thai authorities urged vigilance Friday as the country celebrates its first long holiday weekend after lifting most restrictions imposed to fight the spread of the coronavirus. No new local infections have been reported in Thailand in more than a month. The four-day holiday starting Saturday, incorporating two Buddhist holy days, is expected to see Thais return en masse from the cities where many work to their family homes in rural areas.