Kim Jong Un announces strict lockdown after country confirms first COVID case
The report stated that Pyongyang's people had contracted the Omicron variant without providing any information further. The samples from the infected people were collected on May 8.
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FollowNorth Korea confirmed its first COVID-19 case on Thursday and has declared a national lockdown, as per its state media reports, adding that a sub-variant of the highly transmissible Omicron virus had been discovered in Pyongyang.
The official KCNA news agency stated, "There has been the country's largest emergency incident, with a hole in our emergency quarantine front, which has been kept safe for the last two years and three months, beginning in February 2020."
The report stated that Pyongyang's people had contracted the Omicron variant without providing any information further. The samples from the infected people were collected on May 8, following the report.
The report was issued as the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called a Workers' Party meeting to discuss responses to the first coronavirus outbreak.
"Strictly lockdown," the North Korean leader directed all cities and countries of the country and its region to prevent the spread of the virus and stated that emergency reserve medical supplies would be mobilised, as per reports.
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Even though the North has never confirmed a single coronavirus infection in the country, officials in South Korea and the United States have expressed doubts, particularly after instances of the Omicron strains have been widely reported in neighbouring South Korea and China.
North Korea has turned down vaccines from the COVAX global Covid-19 vaccine sharing effort and China's Sinovac Biotech vaccine.
The purpose of the latest emergency quarantine system, according to Kim, is to stably control and manage the spread of the coronavirus and quickly heal afflicted persons to eliminate the source of transmission in the shortest time possible, according to the media reports.
A South Korea-based website that monitors activities in Pyongyang stated that the residents had been advised to return home this week and be indoors due to the "national problem" without offering details.
According to Chinese state television, North Korea has ordered its citizens to stay at home since May 11 since many of them had "suspected flu symptoms," without mentioning Covid-19.
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