SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared victory over COVID-19 and ordered the easing of preventive measures just three months after acknowledging an outbreak, saying the country’s widely questioned good fortune would be identified as a global health miracle.
North Korea’s official central news agency also reported Thursday that Kim’s sister said her brother was suffering from fever and blamed the North Korean outbreak on leaflets stolen at the border with South Korea, though she warned of fatal retaliation.
Some experts believe North Korea manipulated the scale of the outbreak to help Kim maintain absolute control over the country amid growing economic hardship. They believe the victory signals Kim’s intention to move on to other priorities, but they worry that his sister’s comments portend a provocation.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which manages inter-Korean affairs, issued deep remorse for North Korea’s “extremely disrespectful and threatening comments” that were based on “ridiculous accusations” about the source of its infections.
Since North Korea admitted an outbreak of the omicron virus in May, it has reported about 4. 8 million “fever cases” in its population of 26 million, but has only known a fraction of them as COVID-19. He said the outbreak has been slowing for weeks. and only 74 other people had died.
“Since we began meeting the maximum emergency anti-epidemic crusade (in May), daily fever cases that reached thousands in the first days of the outbreak have dropped to less than 90,000 a month later and have decreased frequently, and not a single case of fever suspected of being related to the malefic virus has been reported since July 29. ” Kim said in his speech on Wednesday, according to KCNA.
“For a country that has not yet administered a vaccine shot to single people, our good fortune to overcome the spread of the disease in such a short time and restore public physical security and make our country a clean, virus-free zone is a miracle that would be recorded in the global history of public fitness. ” Said.
For Kim, pointing to victory over COVID-19 suggests that she move on to other priorities, such as boosting a broken and heavily sanctioned economy even more broken by closing pandemic borders or conducting a nuclear test, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of foreign studies at Seoul’s Ewha Women’s University.
South Korean and U. S. officials said North Korea could prepare for its first nuclear check in five years amid its torrid series of arms controls this year, which included its first intercontinental ballistic missile demonstrations since 2017.
The provocative activity underscores Kim’s dual goal of increasing his arsenal and pressuring Biden’s management in long-standing negotiations to harness his nuclear weapons for much-needed sanctions relief and security concessions, experts say.
Kim Jun-rak, spokesman for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday that South Korea’s military remains firmly prepared and prepared for “various possibilities” of provocations by North Korea.
The bellicose rhetoric from Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, is troubling, as it indicates that she will try to blame the South for any resurgence of COVID-19 and also seeks to justify North Korea’s upcoming military provocation, Easley said.
North Korea first reported in July that its COVID-19 outbreak began in other people who had been in contact with items carried in balloons from South Korea, a dubious and unscientific claim that appeared to be an attempt to hold its rival accountable.
For years, militants have flown balloons across the border to distribute loads of thousands of propaganda leaflets criticizing Kim, and North Korea has expressed anger at South Korean activists and leaders for failing to arrest them.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Kim Yo Jong reiterated those claims, calling the country’s viral crisis a “hysterical farce” introduced through South Korea to escalate the confrontation. He claimed his brother had suffered from fever symptoms and praised his “energetic and meticulous advice” a “historic miracle” in the fight against COVID-19.
“The (South Korean) puppets throw dirty leaflets and items into our territory. We will have to counter them firmly,” he said. We have already thought of various countermeasure plans, but our countermeasure will have to be a deadly retaliation. “
Kim Yo Jong’s reference to Kim Jong Un’s illness is no longer explained.
Outside experts suspect the virus spread after North Korea reopened its northern border with China to shipment traffic in January and rose further after a military parade and other large-scale events in Pyongyang in April.
In May, Kim banned movement between cities and counties to curb the spread of the virus. But it was also pressured by the need to achieve its economic goals, which meant that massive teams continued to gather at agricultural, commercial and structural sites.
At the assembly on the virus, Kim called for preventive measures to be relaxed and for the country to maintain effective surveillance and border controls, which brought up the global spread of new variants of the coronavirus and monkeypox.
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