North Korea Claims No New Fever Cases – Experts Say 'Realistically Impossible' To Bring COVID-19 Cases To Zero In Just Months

For the first time since detecting its initial COVID cases in May, Kim Jong-Un's North Korea on Saturday said it recorded no new fever cases. 

What Happened: The North Korean state media said that according to the information of the state emergency anti-epidemic headquarters, “no new fever cases, with 13 recoveries, were reported.”

North Korea abruptly admitted to its first domestic COVID-19 outbreak on May 12, placing its 26 million unimmunized citizens under stricter restrictions.

International health experts have indicated that North Korea's COVID tally is likely manipulated, and the scale of illness and deaths is being kept lower to help the "supreme leader" maintain his absolute control amid mounting economic difficulties.

Lee Yo Han, a professor at Ajou University Graduate School of Public Health in South Korea, told the AP that “realistically speaking, hundreds of thousands of daily fever cases becoming zero in less than three months is something impossible.”

Another report from KCNAWatch said the country is intensifying and upgrading its anti-epidemic systems to guard against other subvariants of COVID-19 and diseases like monkeypox that are occurring in other nations.

The state media also hailed Kim and the country for suppressing the outbreak much faster than other countries. “The organizational power and unity unique to the society of (North Korea) is fully displayed in the struggle to bring forward a victory in the emergency anti-epidemic campaign,” the report said.

Photo: Created with an image from Prachatai on Flickr