Coronavirus: North Korea claims no new fever cases amid doubts over Covid data
- Earlier this month, Pyongyang said it was on a path to ‘finally defuse’ first publicly declared coronavirus crisis even as infections globally rise
- The North’s state emergency anti-epidemic centre said its total caseload was about 4.8 million and about 99.99 per cent of them have fully recovered
North Korea on Saturday reported no new fever cases for the first time since it abruptly admitted to its first domestic Covid-19 outbreak and placed its 26 million people under more draconian restrictions in May.
There have been widespread outside doubts about the accuracy of North Korean statistics as its reported fatalities are too low and its daily fever cases have been plummeting too fast recently. Some experts say North Korea has likely manipulated the scale of illness and deaths to help leader Kim Jong-un maintain absolute control amid mounting economic difficulties.
The North’s state emergency anti-epidemic centre said via state media it had found zero fever patients in the latest 24-hour period. It said its total caseload was about 4.8 million and that about 99.99 per cent of them have fully recovered. The country’s death count remains at 74, a mortality rate of 0.0016 per cent that would be the world’s lowest if true.
Despite the claimed zero cases, it is unclear whether and how soon North Korea would formally declare victory over Covid-19 and lift pandemic-related curbs because experts say it could face a viral resurgence later this year like many other countries. Recently, North Korea’s state media has repeatedly said it’s intensifying and upgrading its anti-epidemic systems to guard against coronavirus subvariants and other diseases like monkeypox that are occurring in other countries.
“The organisational power and unity unique to the society of [North Korea] is fully displayed in the struggle to bring forward a victory in the emergency anti-epidemic campaign by fully executing the anti-epidemic policies of the party and the state,” the official Korean Central News Agency said on Saturday.
North Korea’s claimed zero cases could still have symbolic significance in its efforts to establish Kim’s image as a leader who has controlled the outbreak much faster than other countries. Kim would need such credentials to garner greater public support to surmount economic hardships caused by pandemic-related border closings, UN sanctions and his own mismanagement, observers say.
“In North Korea, public healthcare and politics cannot be separated from each other, and that aspect has been revealed again in its Covid-19 outbreak,” said Ahn Kyung-su, head of DPRKHEALTH.ORG, a website focusing on health issues in North Korea. “Since they began with manipulated data, they’re now putting an end to the outbreak with manipulated data.”
