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https://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-jong-un-creates-an-opportunity-out-of-north-koreas-covid-crisis-11652959286

Kim Jong Un Creates an Opportunity Out of North Korea’s Covid Crisis
State media highlights Mr. Kim’s role in fighting the rapid spread of infection

SEOUL—For more than two years, North Korea said dictator Kim Jong Un’s decision to close the country’s borders had ensured it remained Covid free.

A recent surge of infections centered on the capital Pyongyang has triggered a pivot to portray Mr. Kim as a more active protector. State media has shown him making late night visits to pharmacies to check on medical supplies, berating officials for laziness in guarding against the spread of the virus, and describing the outbreak as the country’s worst ever crisis.

Health experts suspect Covid was already circulating in some parts of North Korea, but the clear arrival of the disease in Pyongyang is a more serious proposition for Mr. Kim because it’s home to regime loyalists who support his grip on power. The risks to the three million people in the capital have been increased by North Korea’s refusal of vaccines.


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“The regime realizes that it’s going to be difficult to hide this, so instead it’s using it as an opportunity to try and make Kim Jong Un look good,” said Go Myung-hyun, a senior fellow at the Asan Institute, a Seoul-based think tank.

More than 400,000 fever cases have officially been reported in Pyongyang. After confirming a single person in Pyongyang tested positive for Covid-19 on May 8, North Korea hasn’t indicated whether others have been tested and instead refers to the spread of fever cases, likely because it doesn’t have mass testing capacity.

Nationwide, almost two million people have been reported with fever, including over 260,000 new cases on Wednesday. Only 63 deaths have been confirmed by state media.


Streets were closed in Pyongyang amid a growing outbreak of Covid in North Korea.

Health experts say the true toll is almost certainly higher, but North Korea has refused to share information with the World Health Organization or accept offers of medical aid, antiviral treatments and vaccines, including from South Korea.

Instead, it has secretly flown in shipments of medical supplies from China and pooled its medical resources in Pyongyang. One person who left North Korea in 2019 but has maintained contacts inside the country said medical goods have been transferred to the capital from the provinces, leaving very little for those in rural areas, where hospitals and clinics are already chronically short of supplies.

Another person who defected from North Korea in recent years and spoke to people in the country this week said cases of infection in the northwest border area are widespread. Malnutrition among poorer North Koreans and the failing medical system has raised concerns about a high toll from the Covid outbreak, but this person said most people who get sick have a fever for a few days and don’t consider the disease too serious.


North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared wearing a mask on state TV as Pyongyang reported its first local case of Covid-19. The country, which had so far claimed to be Covid-free, has poor health infrastructure to fight outbreaks. Photo: Associated Press
It’s all but impossible to get a reliable picture of the overall state of illness, but human rights advocates say the spread of Covid in unvaccinated North Korea has the potential to create a health crisis not seen since a famine in the 1990s killed more than a million people.

North Korea’s relatively young population may be one factor that could keep the impact of the outbreak relatively mild. Serious illness and death from Covid around the world is much lower among younger people. The median age in North Korea is 34.6, according to the CIA World Fact Book, compared with 43.2 in South Korea, where nearly 24,000 people have died of Covid.

Speculation about how the chain of infections began in Pyongyang has focused on a military parade on April 25, at which thousands of unmasked people gathered at a central square in the city to cheer on displays of weapons and soldiers, and at which Mr. Kim appeared from a balcony to wave to the crowd.


In a sign that cases have spread widely, members of the small diplomatic community have also come down with fever, according to a person familiar with the situation.


North Korea’s military medical workers helped distribute medicine to citizens at a pharmacy in Pyongyang on Wednesday.

North Korea hasn’t asked for vaccines because doing so would be equivalent to admitting that its Covid-prevention policy—closely linked to Mr. Kim—has failed, said Mr. Go of the Asan Institute. Creating a dependency on an outside country, particularly rival South Korea, or the U.S., to supply vaccinations and booster shots could also weaken North Korea’s control of its population, he said.

Instead, the strategy is to show the elite class in Pyongyang that the battle against Covid can be fought and won by Mr. Kim with North Korea’s own resources. State media has called Mr. Kim the “front-line commander in the prevention war” and the “incarnate of devotion for the people.”

During a recent Politburo meeting, Mr. Kim told officials the party should prove its competency by successfully dealing with the outbreak and urged people to strengthen their trust in the leadership, according to state media.


If the impact of the pandemic on North Korea, and Pyongyang in particular, isn’t as bad as feared, the leadership could use it as an opportunity to reopen its border with China and resume trade once it joins other nations in achieving herd immunity, North Korea watchers say.

The risks for Mr. Kim are still high, but he may emerge in a stronger position if the current crisis leads to an easing of food shortages and dire economic conditions caused by North Korea’s isolation since the start of the global pandemic.

“This is an opportunity to prove the country can overcome a crisis under his leadership,” said Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think tank in Seoul.

Write to Alastair Gale at alastair.gale@wsj.com and Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com