North Korea reports first Covid outbreak, orders national lockdown

North Korea has ordered a strict national lockdown after confirming its first official Covid infections. State media have reported an Omicron outbreak in the capital Pyongyang. North Korean news agency, KCNA said, leader Kim Jong-un had vowed to eradicate the outbreak, which they called a severe national emergency that had breached the country's quarantine front. The North Korean news outlet added that the first case of the Omicron variant had been reportedly detected in the capital four days ago.“The state epidemic prevention work shall be switched over to the maximum emergency epidemic prevention system,” KCNA said.
Residents in some areas of Pyongyang had been subjected to lockdown for at least two days prior to the latest announcement. The first public admission of COVID infections highlights the potential for a major crisis in a country that has refused international help with vaccinations and kept its borders shut. Meanwhile, South Korea's government said, it has renewed its offer of humanitarian assistance to the North in response to the news of the outbreak. Pyongyang has yet to respond.

Although the North has never before confirmed a single coronavirus infection in the country, officials in South Korea and the United States have doubted that the country is COVID-free, as cases of the Omicron variant were widely reported in neighbouring South Korea and China. The isolated North has enforced strict quarantine measures, including border lockdowns, since the pandemic began in early 2020. In July that year, Kim declared an emergency and imposed a lockdown on Kaesong, near the inter-Korean border, for three weeks after a man who defected to the South in 2017 returned to the city showing coronavirus symptoms.