WHO believes Covid getting worse, not better in North Korea

The World Health Organization cast doubt on North Korea's claims of progress in the fight against a coronavirus outbreak in the reclusive East Asian nation. The head of the emergency program at the WHO, Michael Ryan, said, they assume the situation is getting worse, not better. He said, the WHO did not have access to any privileged information beyond the numbers publicly reported by state media. Ryan said WHO had offered technical assistance and supplies to North Korean officials multiple times, including offering Covid-19 vaccines on at least three separate occasions.  He said WHO was working with neighboring countries like China and South Korea to ascertain more about what might be happening in North Korea, saying that the epidemic there could potentially have global implications. WHO’s criticism of North Korea’s failure to provide more information about its Covid-19 outbreak stands in contrast to the UN health agency’s failure to publicly fault China in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

North Korean state media has said the Covid wave has abated after daily numbers of people with fever topped 390,000 about two weeks ago. However, it did not mention whether there were any deaths. North Korea’s claims to have controlled Covid-19 without widespread vaccination, lockdowns or drugs have been met with widespread disbelief, particularly its insistence that only dozens have died among many millions infected — a far lower death rate than seen anywhere else in the world.