1st COVID outbreak confirmed, Kim orders a lockdown

North Korea confirmed its first coronavirus infections of the pandemic Thursday after holding for more than two years to a widely doubted claim of a perfect record keeping out the virus that has spread to nearly every place in the world.

The official Korean Central News Agency said tests of samples collected Sunday from an unspecified number of people with fevers in the capital, Pyongyang, confirmed they were infected with the omicron variant.

In response, leader Kim Jong Un called for a thorough lockdown of cities and counties and said workplaces should be isolated by units to block the virus from spreading, KCNA said.

The country’s population of 26 million is believed to be mostly unvaccinated, after its government shunned vaccines offered by the U.N.backed COVAX distribution program, possibly because those have international monitoring requirements.