north korea has reported its first death
from covet 19.
the news comes a day after the country
acknowledged an outbreak of the virus
for the first time in this worldwide
crisis ordering a lockdown
the state media says six people have
died from a fever that's been spreading
fast nationwide it's confirmed one of
them had tested positive for the
coronavirus omicron variant it's also
released this photo of leader kim
jong-un at the emergency epidemic
prevention headquarters
the country had previously claimed to
have had zero infections during the
pandemic it's refused international help
with vaccinations and has kept its
borders closed
well i'm joined by correspondent josh
smith in seoul south korea uh not so far
from this very secretive nation but
tell us a bit more about
what's going on or what you can tell us
considering that officially covert is
now starting to take its toll in north
korea about two and a half years into
this pandemic
that's right it is quite a startling
admission by the government there uh
there have long been suspicions that
there uh that it was unlikely that north
korea would entirely escape this global
pandemic and now we have the first
official confirmation from the
government that there are indeed cases
there as you mentioned though even the
the death numbers that they've released
so far uh do show uh the the amount of
confusion uh uh over exactly what's
going on there this kind of unknown
fever that they say um
uh
infected at least 350 000 people so far
just in recent weeks
but they haven't released total covet
case numbers
and experts we talked to said that that
shows perhaps a weakness in in their
capabilities and able to
test the sheer number of people with
symptoms uh there right now
and so i think going forward there's
going to continue to be questions over
uh not only
the numbers but also uh their capability
and being able to uh help people and
prevent widespread deaths
josh just how bad do you think this
outbreak could get considering such a
poor health care system no vaccines and
sanctions on top of that
so north korea uh has a a relatively
high number of educated uh doctors and
staff and a health care system that
given its uh you know authoritarian
nature of the the government can be very
quickly mobilized and deployed around
the country however they have chronic
shortages of supplies medicines
equipment all of that which is why
experts say that it's so critical that
they do open their doors uh to some aid
now in recent months uh there has been a
trickle of aid we understand that's come
in from some international organizations
there um
going through that very tight border
lockdown that you uh mentioned before
however there's been no sign of vaccines
uh which have been key to keeping at
least the the death rates lower around
the world and are seen as key to
allowing uh north korea to eventually uh
open up and protect its already uh
battered economy do you think north
korea will eventually have to open up
and in effect open itself to
outside scrutiny
uh there are uh some observers who
looked at this kind of uh
rather unprecedented
state media coverage of
this first outbreak as a possible sign
that north korea is moving towards that
that they're getting ready to
potentially accept some of this aid um
they've already
opened their borders slightly relative
to what they had before again in a
an impairment apparent acknowledgement
that they do need to ease some of the
controls that they have had there um and
so there is an optimistic view that
hopefully they are uh now with the scale
of this spread uh going to open up to
some of that aid that will allow them to
uh live with kovid as the rest of the
world is
journalist josh smith in seoul south
korea thank you very much