North Korea prepares to declare COVID-19 victory

“According to North Korea, it defeats everything. It doesn’t acknowledge things that it can’t overcome. It always wins absolutely, no matter whether it faces military, economic- or pandemic difficulties,” says an expert who deals with health issues in the country.

It's only been a month since North Korea acknowledged having a COVID-19 outbreak, after steadfastly denying any cases for more than two years. But already it may be preparing to declare victory.

According to state media, North Korea has avoided the mass deaths many expected in a nation with one of the world's worst health care systems, little or no access to vaccines, and what outsiders see as a long record of ignoring the suffering of its people.

North Korea's official virus numbers, experts believe, have as much to do with propaganda to boost leader Kim Jong Un as with a true picture of what's happening in the country, and there's widespread doubt about their accuracy.

What's clear, though, is that the daily updates from state media make it appear inevitable that the nation will completely defeat a virus that has killed more than six million people around the world. According to the official tally, cases are plummeting, and, while 18% of the nation of 26 million people reportedly have had symptoms that outsiders strongly suspect were from COVID-19, less than 100 have died.

The South Korean government as well as some experts believe that North Korea may soon declare that it has beaten the virus. This will be linked, of course, to Kim's strong and clever guidance.

A victory lap, however, isn’t a foregone conclusion. Doing so, according to some experts, would deprive Kim of a useful tool to control the public and could open the government up to humiliation if cases continue.

“There are two sides to such a declaration,” said Moon Seong Mook, an analyst with the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy. “If North Korea says that COVID-19 has gone, it can emphasise that Kim Jong Un is a great leader who has overcome the pandemic. But in doing so, it can’t maintain the powerful restrictions that it uses to control its people in the name of containing COVID-19.”