North Korea receives aid from China as Covid outbreak spreads

Cargo planes flew medical supplies from Chinese city of Shenyang, diplomats say.

Railway staff disinfect Pyongyang station on Tuesday. Picture: KCNA via AFP

North Korea, battling its first reported Covid-19 outbreak, has reached out for help to its closest ally, China, while ignoring offers of vaccines from South Korea.

Three North Korean cargo planes flew to the Chinese city of Shenyang on Monday, returning the same day carrying basic medical supplies, say diplomats familiar with the flights.

China was willing to support North Korea and strengthen co-operation for epidemic prevention, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry said this week.

On Wednesday, North Korea said 232,880 more people had reported fever symptoms the previous day and six had died, bringing the total number of fever victims to over 1.7 million people since Pyongyang first admitted to an Omicron outbreak last week. North Korea, which lacks Covid-testing equipment, hasn’t said whether fever sufferers have been tested for the virus.

In recent days, North Korean state media praised China’s Covid management, despite the breakdown of both countries’ zero-Covid policies. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un told officials to “actively learn from the advanced and rich anti-epidemic successes and experience already gained by the Chinese party and people”.

While China has vaccinated many of its people, North Korea has refused all offers of vaccines.

At a politburo meeting on Tuesday, Kim accused his officials of laziness in their handling of the Covid outbreak after it spread quickly across the country. Kim said the “immaturity in the state capacity for coping with the crisis” increased the “complexity and hardships” in fighting the pandemic.

This week, North Korea mobilised 3000 military medics to distribute medicine to pharmacies in Pyongyang, which have been told to operate 24 hours a day. More than 1.4 million public health officials, teachers and students have been deployed to help identify people with symptoms so they could be quarantined.

South Korea has offered to send medical supplies, including vaccines, face masks and test kits, as well as provide technical co-operation, but North Korea has yet to respond.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said he would spare no effort to help North Korea cope with its outbreak.

The US has also said it supports providing North Korea with aid, but Pyongyang’s lack of a response to South Korea makes it difficult for President Joe Biden and Mr Yoon to discuss sending aid during their summit in Seoul this weekend.

Pyongyang has also yet to inform the World Health Organisation of its outbreak. During a Tuesday briefing, WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said high levels of transmission among unvaccinated people, such as in North Korea, increases the risk that new Covid variants will emerge. The agency said it is ready to provide technical support to scale up testing in North Korea, as well as essential medical supplies and medicines.

Health experts say that without vaccines and testing capacity, North Korea risks being overwhelmed by a health crisis exceeding any since a famine killed over a million people in the 1990s. Pyongyang rejected millions of vaccine doses before the outbreak, and its population remains vulnerable because of widespread malnutrition and a weak healthcare system.

North Korea has put many people under lockdown, which will have dire consequences for those already struggling to meet basic needs such as food, said Liz Throssell, the spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. People living in more isolated rural and border areas, and those in detention, remain especially vulnerable due to limited access to hygiene and healthcare, she said.

The pandemic has further damaged an economy already hit by international sanctions over the regime’s nuclear-weapons and missiles development.

The outbreak comes amid a flurry of weapons tests. Satellite imagery shows signs that the North is restoring its main nuclear-testing site, last active in 2017. US and South Korean officials have said a nuclear test could happen as early as this month.

The Wall Street Journal