North Korean Leader Blasts Pandemic Response As COVID Outbreak Surges
Newsy
According to state media, more than 500,000 people have been quarantined due to a fast spreading fever — but those numbers are likely underreported.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un criticized officials over slow medicine deliveries and mobilized the military to respond to a surge in suspected COVID-19 infections, as his nation struggled to contain a fever that has reportedly killed dozens and sickened nearly a million others in a span of three days.
North Korean health authorities said Monday that eight more people died and an additional 392,920 were newly found to have feverish symptoms. That brings the death toll to 50 and illnesses to more than 1.2 million, respectively. It’s a sharp jump from six dead and 350,000 sick reported last Friday, a day after the North said that it found that an unspecified number of people in capital Pyongyang tested positive for the Omicron variant.
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