Coronavirus: North Korea reports nearly 2 million suspected Covid-19 infections with 740,000 in quarantine

The closed-off country has only confirmed a small number of cases because it lacks coronavirus tests. At least 740,160 people have been quarantined

Deaths could approach a scale of tens of thousands given the size of the country’s caseload, said a global health specialist from Harvard Medical School

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North Korean soldiers distribute medicines at a pharmacy in Pyongyang on Wednesday amid growing fears over North Korea’s Covid-19 outbreak. Photo: Kyodo via Reuters

Published: 9:12am, 19 May 2022Updated: 9:21am, 19 May 2022

North Korea on Thursday reported 262,270 more cases of people with suspected symptoms of Covid-19 as its pandemic caseload neared 2 million – a week after the country acknowledged the outbreak and scrambled to slow the rate of infections despite a lack of healthcare resources.

The country is also trying to prevent its fragile economy from deteriorating, but the outbreak could be worse than officially reported because of scarce resources for virus testing and the possibility that North Korea could be deliberately under-reporting deaths to soften the political impact on authoritarian leader Kim Jong-un.

North Korea’s antivirus headquarters reported a single death in the 24 hours to 6pm on Wednesday to bring its death toll to 63, which experts have said is abnormally small compared to the suspected number of infections.

A medical worker talks to a family about Covid-19 prevention measures on Tuesday in this picture provided by the North Korean government. Photo: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP

The official Korean Central News Agency reported that more than 1.98 million people have become sick with feverish symptoms since late April, which are mostly believed to be coronavirus Omicron variant infections, although the country has only confirmed a small number of infection cases because of the scarcity of tests. At least 740,160 people are in quarantine, the news agency reported.

After maintaining a dubious claim that it had kept the virus out of the country for two and a half years, North Korea acknowledged its first Covid-19 infections on Thursday last week, saying that tests from an unspecified number of people in capital Pyongyang showed they were infected with the Omicron variant.

Kim has called the outbreak a “great upheaval” and has imposed what the country described as maximum preventive measures that strictly restricted the movement of people and supplies between cities and regions.

He mobilised more than 1 million workers to find and quarantine people with fevers and other suspected Covid-19 symptoms. Thousands of troops were ordered to help transport medicine in the capital of Pyongyang.