North Korea’s Confirmed Covid-19 Cases Jump to 18,000: ‘Wait Holy Sh*t Yesterday it Was ONE’
North Korea confirmed on Wednesday its first-ever case of Covid-19 and immediately locked down the entire country. CNN’s Will Ripley reported from Taiwan on Thursday that Covid-19 spreading in North Korea has the “potential to be a public health catastrophe” in the isolated country as it is only one of two countries in the world not to vaccinate its population against the virus.
Ripley noted that the Omicron variant was detected in the country’s capital of Pyongyang and threatens to cripple North Korea’s healthcare system, which “does not have the capacity to treat people who are at high risk from a highly contagious variant such as this.”
#urgent North Korea has reported its first ever case of Covid-19. State media calls the outbreak in Pyongyang a “major national emergency.” Omicron could cripple the nation’s dilapidated healthcare system. NK has sealed its borders since January, 2020. @NewDay @brikeilarcnn pic.twitter.com/KMAxZ3vYUG
— Will Ripley (@willripleyCNN) May 12, 2022
Later in the day on Thursday, South Korean news agency Yonhap News reported that the number of Covid-19 patients in North Korea had already jumped to “over 18,000 patients.”
Jenn Williams, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy, commented on the quick jump, saying, “Wait holy shit yesterday it was ONE.” Williams’ comments both underscore the sensational nature of the jump and the challenge of getting accurate information out of North Korea.
Wait holy shit yesterday it was ONE https://t.co/cXPAfnxRgK
— Jenn Williams (@jenn_ruth) May 12, 2022
Reuters added some additional reporting on the situation inside North Korea, which officially sealed its borders due to Covid-19 in January 2020, noting “some 187,800 people are currently being treated in isolation after a fever of unidentified origin has spread in the country since late April, the official KCNA news agency reported.”
“Around 350,000 people have shown signs of that fever, 162,200 of them treated so far, though KCNA did not specify how many had tested positive for COVID-19,” Reuters added, explaining that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had declared the “gravest state emergency” when ordering a national lockdown.
