North Korea declares ‘severe national emergency’ over its first COVID-19 outbreak

North Korea has declared a “severe national emergency” after confirming its first outbreak of Covid-19, prompting its leader, Kim Jong-un, to vow to quickly eliminate the virus.

State media reported on Thursday that a sub-variant of the Omicron virus, known as BA.2, had been detected in the capital, Pyongyang.

“There has been the biggest emergency incident in the country, with a hole in our emergency quarantine front, that has been kept safely over the past two years and three months since February 2020,” the official KCNA news agency said.

The report said people in Pyongyang had contracted the Omicron variant, without providing details on case numbers or possible sources of infection.

North Korea had claimed it had not recorded a single case of Covid-19 since it closed its borders at the start of the pandemic more than two years ago. Top officials, including leader Kim Jong Un, held a crisis meeting to discuss the outbreak and announced they would implement a “maximum emergency” virus control system.

Kim told the meeting that “the goal was to eliminate the root within the shortest period of time,” according to KCNA. “He assured us that because of the people’s high political awareness… we will surely overcome the emergency and win the emergency quarantine project.”

Kim called for tighter border controls and lockdown measures, telling citizens “to completely block the spread of the malicious virus by thoroughly blocking their areas in all cities and counties across the country.”

All business and production activities will be organized, so each work unit is “isolated” to prevent the spread of disease, KCNA added.

Experts believe North Korea has not vaccinated any of its 25 million people, having rejected offers of vaccinations from the World Health Organization along with China and Russia. Experts also believe that North Korea’s health system would struggle to cope with a major virus outbreak.