Kim berates North Korean officials for ‘crucial’ virus lapse

SEOUL, South Korea (AP):

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un berated top officials for failures in coronavirus prevention that caused a “great crisis,” using strong language that raised the specter of a mass outbreak in a country that would be scarcely able to handle it.

The state media report Wednesday did not specify what “crucial” lapse had prompted Kim to call the Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, but experts said North Korea could be wrestling with a significant setback in its pandemic fight.

So far, North Korea has claimed to have had no coronavirus infections despite testing thousands of people and sharing a porous border with China. Experts widely doubt the claim and are concerned about any potential outbreak, given the country’s poor health infrastructure.

At the Politburo meeting, Kim criticised the senior officials for supposed incompetence, irresponsibility, and passiveness in planning and executing anti-virus measures amid the lengthening pandemic, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

Kim said “senior officials in charge of important state affairs neglected the implementation of the important decisions of the party on taking organisational, institutional, material, scientific, and technological measures as required by the prolonged state emergency epidemic prevention campaign,” according to KCNA. This “caused a crucial case of creating a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people and entailed grave consequences”.

The report also said hat the party recalled an unspecified member of the Politburo’s powerful Presidium, which consists of Kim and four other top officials.