There's One Reason Kim Jong Un Is Loving North Korea's COVID Outbreak - The Daily Beast

But it could cost him control of North Korea.

SEOUL—The spread of COVID-19 in North Korea is not all bad news for leader Kim Jong Un.

He’s calling for “correcting deviations revealed in the supply of medicines” when it’s well known North Korean medical facilities are largely bereft of medicine of any kind, much less any capable of curing COVID-19.

Pyongyang’s Korea Central News agency said he had issued an order for “immediately stabilizing the supply of medicines in Pyongyang City by involving the powerful forces of the military medical field of the People's Army.”.

KCNA put out the dispatch in English as well as Korean, indicating the need to prove Kim’s fully in charge before an international audience.

Kim Jong Un inspects a pharmacy in Pyongyang, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15, 2022.

NK News, a website in Seoul, said “fever” was “a likely euphemism for the virus that reflects a probable inability for North Korea to clinically diagnose all positive COVID-19 infections due to limited testing capacity.”.

While “pointing out that the medicines provided by the state have not been supplied to inhabitants through pharmacies correctly in time,” said KCNA, Kim said “officials of the Cabinet and public health sector in charge of the supply have not rolled up their sleeves, not properly recognizing the present crisis but only talking about the spirit of devotedly serving the people.”.

Presumably a small elite within Pyongyang has access to all the medical assistance they need, but the vast majority of North Korea’s 26 million people are without access to care.

Now Kim faces the risk, much as he hates the idea, of having to accept foreign assistance in the form of vaccines and medical equipment needed to combat the disease.

By controlling “the flow of information,” said Straub, Kim “can accept international vaccines or not, all the while blaming others, inside and outside North Korea, for everything that goes wrong in the country.”