Drought, famine, and “fever” sweep North Korea

Kim Jong Un wears a face mask for the first time in three years on television. (Photo: Anthony Wallace, AFP)

Earlier in the pandemic, North Korea completely closed off its borders in an attempt to keep COVID-19 at bay. Although, “closed off” may be an understatement in this case. In early 2020, there were reports of “shoot to kill” orders at the North Korea border. While that may seem like too much to people like you and me, the strategy did kind of work.

Over the course of two years, North Korea reported zero COVID cases. In fact, in April 2021, they told the WHO that they tested 23,121 people for COVID, and that all of those tests came out negative. 

But while that strategy was effective in the short term, we’re starting to see cracks in North Korea’s ironclad defenses. In May 2022, the country reported a major disease outbreak, which they called a “malignant fever” even though experts around the world were saying it was almost certainly a surge of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant. 

A bad fever

As of July 6th, North Korean state media reports fewer than 5 million cases of “fever” and only 73 deaths, although their administration claims only a handful of these cases tested positive for COVID. 

These 5 million “fever” cases is staggering, especially considering that the entire North Korean population amounts to 25 million people. It means about a fifth of their population has been infected with this “fever.” In Pyongyang alone, 240,459 people had been treated for the “fever” in late May. 

But these numbers are still suspect. “North Koreans call them rubber band statistics,” Choi Jung Hun, a doctor in North Korea for over a decade before he fled his country, said in an interview with CNN, “It’s hard even for North Korea to know its own numbers.”

As North Korea has kept its citizens isolated from the world for almost 75 years, its capacity to track data has not evolved like the rest of the world has. Considering that, as well as COVID’s infection rate, these numbers are likely to be bigger than they’re reporting.

Catastrophe upon catastrophe

To make matters worse, the country is also facing a drought and a food shortage. In April and May this year, there was only 70% of the average rainfall, with little rain reaching North Korea’s southern region, where much of their cereal is grown. With no rainwater touching their soil, crops produce poorer harvests.

Combine this with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s aggressive border management that has blocked cross-border trade for two years, as well as vaccination efforts, and it’s the perfect storm of catastrophes. 

Oh, did I not mention? Three years into the pandemic, North Korea has a whopping 0 vaccination rate. 

With drought and famine looming, and not a single citizen vaccinated, the future for North Korean citizens looks extremely bleak. There are also some concerns that with such a high replication rate in the unvaccinated North Korean population, new COVID variants might be cropping up. With their low capacity for diagnostic testing and Kim Jong Un’s refusal to share information and refusal to cooperate with international powers, it would be impossible to detect new variants.

But, for the first time in the entire pandemic, Kim Jong Un was shown wearing a mask in state media, and some reports are showing that they have started accepting aid in the form of masks, ventilators, and vaccines from China. Maybe this means their government is finally starting to prioritize actual public health strategies instead of just pointing a gun at the virus.