North Korea Admits Covid Outbreak For The First Time

North Korea has confirmed an outbreak of coronavirus in the country for the first time since the pandemic began, describing it as the “gravest national emergency”. Kim Jong-un declared a nationwide lockdown and vowed to quickly eliminate the virus.

- Shweta Sharma

The country's state-controlled news agency, KCNA, said: “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.”

This is the first public acknowledgement of coronavirus infections in a country in which the media is strictly controlled. North Korea had previously claimed to have recorded zero cases of Covid-19 since the pandemic began in 2020 a claim that was widely doubted by health experts and analysts.

While the rest of the world concentrated on the pandemic, Mr Kim's regime had remained focused on alleged foreign threats to national security, conducting a spree of missile tests while pursuing the development of nuclear weapons along with its ballistic missile programme. Analysts now note that the country is entering a period of uncertainty as the virus presents a more immediate challenge.