North Korea is currently facing a major crisis that threatens the lives of potentially hundreds of thousands of its citizens due to the recent and rapid outbreak of COVID-19. 

North Korean refugees with contacts in both China and North Korea have shared with us that the situation in North Korea is far worse than Kim Jong-un lets on. Some estimate the death toll to be as high as 10 percent of the population once COVID-19 has ravaged the country. 

A refugee recently shared with us that the North Korean government can no longer lie to its people anymore because of text messaging between its citizens, which is why the regime has recently admitted publicly that the country is affected by the pandemic. He also said that North Korea tried to administer the vaccine over the past year but because the mRNA vaccines need to be refrigerated, vaccination efforts fell flat due to the lack of access to reliable electricity. 

Outside of the vaccine, basic medical supplies to treat symptoms of COVID-19 are not available. The country recently asked their ally China for help. North Korea stocked three of its cargo planes with basic medical supplies provided by their neighbor, a far cry from the aid, expertise and technology needed to stave off the disease. In the absence of COVID treatments, North Korea’s state run media have encouraged the use of painkillers and antibiotics, as well as unverified home remedies, such as gargling salt water, or drinking lonicera japonica tea or willow leaf tea.

When asked if this could mean trouble for the Kim regime in North Korea, refugees say that this can absolutely spell danger for the Kim family regime, which has ruled over the country for more than 70 years. North Korea has been relegated to blaming South Korean activists for dropping the virus into the country via propaganda balloons. 

LOCKING DOWN A STARVING NATION

North Korean state media, Rodong Sinmun, reported that Kim Jong-un told North Korean authorities to study and actively follow the “policies, successes, and experiences” of China. At the cost of significantly increasing the odds of mass starvation, their leader “called on all the cities and counties of the whole country to thoroughly lock down their areas and organize work and production after closing each working unit, production unit and living unit from each other so as to flawlessly and perfectly block the spread vacuum of the malicious virus.” 

In a country that is on the brink of famine, the threat of COVID-19 appears to be second to the pressing food crisis, as a ruling party member in North Hamgyong province commented that “[people] are going to factories and to their places of work as normal. The authorities don’t want work to be disrupted...People are worried about how to survive.”  The seriousness of the situation was reflected by their leader’s 2022 New Year remarks, which took many by surprise as he emphasized agricultural output, rather than the party’s favored nuclear weapons and missiles developments. Although starvation is no novelty to North Korea, the combination of food and healthcare insecurity matched with a deadly respiratory virus is a new and frightening challenge. Journalists in South Korea also reported signs of normal agricultural activity in farms to the south, suggesting there may be a rural-urban divide in how lockdowns are being implemented, especially during North Korea’s rice planting season, which runs from May through October.  

KIM JONG-UN'S RESPONSE

At a meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, Kim Jong-un criticized the “immaturity in the state capacity for coping with the crisis” which increased the “complexity and hardship” in fighting the pandemic.  Following which, health officials have developed a COVID-19 treatment guide to prevent drug overdoses and medical mistreatments that resulted in many of the reported deaths, though it is unclear exactly what drugs are currently used to treat patients with COVID-19.  Kim Jong-un also ordered the distribution of medicine released from state reserves and mobilized his army of nearly 3,000 members of the Korean People’s Army’s medical units to transport medical supplies to pharmacies in Pyongyang.  Meanwhile, more than 1.4 million officials, teachers, and students in the public health sector were deployed to identify people with COVID-19 symptoms.

NORTH KOREA'S PANDEMIC RESPONSE THUS FAR

North Korea has fought the pandemic as a matter of “national survival” since COVID-19 emerged in China back in January 2020.  As one of the first countries to close borders due to COVID-19, Pyongyang set up an “emergency quarantine command” specifically to deal with the spread of the virus and pledged that it would not open its borders until a cure was found.  The COVID-19 measures taken extended beyond suspending trade with China, which plays a pivotal part in North Korea’s economy, to systematically rejecting humanitarian aid such as vaccines from foreign countries and even executing a citizen for bringing goods through customs in violation of Covid-related quarantine measures. The world's attention was once again drawn to the North’s strict restrictions when it announced that it would not participate in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo due to concerns over potential exposure to COVID-19, which led to the country’s suspension from participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. By April 2021, many foreign diplomats left the isolated country amidst severe food and drug shortages. Later that month, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said the country was facing its “worst-ever situation” comparable to the great famine in the 1990’s and called the party to wage another Arduous March to fight the economic hardship.  

Despite adopting harsh lockdown and enforcement measures, including the shoot-on-sight orders, North Korea’s self-proclaimed perfect zero-covid record was recently overrun by 1.5 million “fever” cases (a euphemism for suspected COVID-19, given the lack of testing capacity necessary to confirm diagnosis of COVID-19) that resulted in over 62 deaths to date. However, some observers noted that the number of reported cases lacks accuracy as authorities may deliberately underreport cases to disguise the seriousness of the crisis and ease the pressure on their leader.  Not a single North Korean citizen is known to have received COVID-19 vaccination. An outbreak of the omicron variant within its borders could unleash a humanitarian crisis, especially in the context of a dire economy following trade suspensions, natural disasters, unfavorable harvests and widespread starvation, a broken healthcare system, and years of international sanctions imposed in response to ballistic missile tests.