North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared victory over COVID-19 at a national meeting where his sister, in an especially combative speech, said Kim had suffered a fever himself and laid dubious blame against South Korea for the outbreak while vowing deadly retaliation.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Thursday that Kim ordered preventive measures eased just three months after the country first acknowledged an outbreak, claiming the country’s widely disputed success would be recognized as a global health miracle.
North Korea first suggested in July that its COVID-19 outbreak began in people who had contact with objects carried by balloons flown from South Korea — a questionable and unscientific claim that appeared to be an attempt to hold its rival responsible. For Kim to declare victory against COVID-19 suggests that he wants to move on to other priorities, such as boosting a broken and heavily sanctioned economy further damaged by pandemic border closures or conducting a nuclear test, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
The bellicose rhetoric of Kim Yo Jong is concerning because it indicates she will try to blame any COVID-19 resurgence on the South and is also looking to justify North Korea’s next military provocation, Easley said.
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