By John Burton
North Korea has played the role of mini-me to China when it comes to COVID. Both countries have pursued a zero-COVID strategy over the past two years and both now are facing the disastrous results of that decision.
After claiming that it had kept COVID largely at bay, China was recently forced to lock down its two biggest cities ― Shanghai and Beijing ― due to the spread of COVID, while maintaining tight border controls. The result is that the Chinese economy is likely to see a sharp slowdown in growth this year.
North Korea's strategy has been even more draconian. It claimed that it kept out COVID by closing off the entire country to outside contacts since early 2020, although there was widespread skepticism that it had achieved zero COVID cases.
Pyongyang has now admitted that the dam has burst, with at least 3 million COVID cases in the last few weeks. The highly contagious Omicron variant apparently made its way into North Korea due to the recent easing of trade restrictions with China, with the largest number of cases occurring around Pyongyang.
In theory, North Korea's strategy to seal off the country made sense since it realized that COVID could overwhelm its fragile healthcare system. But it wasted two precious years by failing to vaccinate the public in the meantime.
It rejected offers from China and Russia to supply their Sinopharm and Sputnik vaccines because of concerns, somewhat justified, that they were ineffective. COVAX, the U.N.-affiliated vaccine agency, reserved several million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine for North Korea, but Pyongyang passed because of reports that it caused blood clots in rare cases.
Instead, North Korea was holding out for offers of the top-of-the-line mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna that never came. In some ways, this reflects China's own selective policy on vaccines when it too favored domestic vaccines over foreign ones although the latter are more effective.
The leadership in Pyongyang has naturally rejected any responsibility for this strategic error when it came to vaccines. Instead it blamed lower-level officials for "carelessness, laxity, responsibility and incompetence" for allowing the virus to enter North Korea.
The country now faces a serious situation since it has created the conditions that would allow COVID to spread like wildfire. In addition to an unvaccinated population, widespread malnutrition and tuberculosis mean the majority of people are susceptible to the virus. The healthcare system is in no condition to deal with a pandemic. It lacks the medicines and equipment, such as ventilators, to help patients afflicted with COVID, while test kits to detect the illness are nearly non-existent.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appeared to confirm some of these problems by criticizing the slow pace of medicine distribution and complaining about the lack of proper medicine storage.
The existential threat posed by the COVID outbreak has led some to believe that it represents an opportunity to force North Korea to re-engage with the outside world by opening its borders to assistance. South Korea and the U.S. have offered to provide medicines and other COVID-related humanitarian aid in the hope that it could lead to the resumption of stalled diplomatic talks on North Korea's nuclear program.
However, Pyongyang's initial public response to the outbreak suggests that such hopes are naive. It claims, for example, that only around 70 people have died from the disease, which would be one of the lowest fatality rates in the world, adding that COVID cases are falling rapidly. The public is being urged to rely on medicinal herbs and other home remedies to deal with "fever" symptoms, while many are being placed in quarantine.
"No need for us to worry," North Korea appears to be telling the world and its own people as it reaffirms its 'Juche' ideology. Like some other authoritarian leaders, Kim Jong-un may also be using the COVID outbreak as an excuse to tighten internal controls further and boost his leadership as he mobilizes military medical personnel and local party units.
Nevertheless, such an approach also carries risks. The outbreak could kill at least 100,000 North Koreans, based on the same fatality rate as in South Korea. And this is an optimistic assessment given the North's lack of preparedness in controlling epidemics.
Nonetheless, there are ways to help control the situation. Instead of accepting aid from South Korea and the U.S., Pyongyang may be willing to cooperate with the U.N., although the resources of that organization are already overstretched. If North Korea is incapable of procuring sufficient supplies of vaccine for its population, it might try to get antiviral pills which would be easier to administer than vaccines. The U.S. should also ease sanctions that limit the local production of medicines.
John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.
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After claiming that it had kept COVID largely at bay, China was recently forced to lock down its two biggest cities ― Shanghai and Beijing ― due to the spread of COVID, while maintaining tight border controls. The result is that the Chinese economy is likely to see a sharp slowdown in growth this year.
North Korea's strategy has been even more draconian. It claimed that it kept out COVID by closing off the entire country to outside contacts since early 2020, although there was widespread skepticism that it had achieved zero COVID cases.
Pyongyang has now admitted that the dam has burst, with at least 3 million COVID cases in the last few weeks. The highly contagious Omicron variant apparently made its way into North Korea due to the recent easing of trade restrictions with China, with the largest number of cases occurring around Pyongyang.
In theory, North Korea's strategy to seal off the country made sense since it realized that COVID could overwhelm its fragile healthcare system. But it wasted two precious years by failing to vaccinate the public in the meantime.
It rejected offers from China and Russia to supply their Sinopharm and Sputnik vaccines because of concerns, somewhat justified, that they were ineffective. COVAX, the U.N.-affiliated vaccine agency, reserved several million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine for North Korea, but Pyongyang passed because of reports that it caused blood clots in rare cases.
Instead, North Korea was holding out for offers of the top-of-the-line mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna that never came. In some ways, this reflects China's own selective policy on vaccines when it too favored domestic vaccines over foreign ones although the latter are more effective.
The leadership in Pyongyang has naturally rejected any responsibility for this strategic error when it came to vaccines. Instead it blamed lower-level officials for "carelessness, laxity, responsibility and incompetence" for allowing the virus to enter North Korea.
The country now faces a serious situation since it has created the conditions that would allow COVID to spread like wildfire. In addition to an unvaccinated population, widespread malnutrition and tuberculosis mean the majority of people are susceptible to the virus. The healthcare system is in no condition to deal with a pandemic. It lacks the medicines and equipment, such as ventilators, to help patients afflicted with COVID, while test kits to detect the illness are nearly non-existent.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appeared to confirm some of these problems by criticizing the slow pace of medicine distribution and complaining about the lack of proper medicine storage.
The existential threat posed by the COVID outbreak has led some to believe that it represents an opportunity to force North Korea to re-engage with the outside world by opening its borders to assistance. South Korea and the U.S. have offered to provide medicines and other COVID-related humanitarian aid in the hope that it could lead to the resumption of stalled diplomatic talks on North Korea's nuclear program.
However, Pyongyang's initial public response to the outbreak suggests that such hopes are naive. It claims, for example, that only around 70 people have died from the disease, which would be one of the lowest fatality rates in the world, adding that COVID cases are falling rapidly. The public is being urged to rely on medicinal herbs and other home remedies to deal with "fever" symptoms, while many are being placed in quarantine.
"No need for us to worry," North Korea appears to be telling the world and its own people as it reaffirms its 'Juche' ideology. Like some other authoritarian leaders, Kim Jong-un may also be using the COVID outbreak as an excuse to tighten internal controls further and boost his leadership as he mobilizes military medical personnel and local party units.
Nevertheless, such an approach also carries risks. The outbreak could kill at least 100,000 North Koreans, based on the same fatality rate as in South Korea. And this is an optimistic assessment given the North's lack of preparedness in controlling epidemics.
Nonetheless, there are ways to help control the situation. Instead of accepting aid from South Korea and the U.S., Pyongyang may be willing to cooperate with the U.N., although the resources of that organization are already overstretched. If North Korea is incapable of procuring sufficient supplies of vaccine for its population, it might try to get antiviral pills which would be easier to administer than vaccines. The U.S. should also ease sanctions that limit the local production of medicines.
John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.
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