{"id":51056,"date":"2022-03-22T17:31:55","date_gmt":"2022-03-22T08:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=51056"},"modified":"2026-04-05T12:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T03:33:29","slug":"experts-large-scale-outbreak-covid-19-north-korea-inevitable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/experts-large-scale-outbreak-covid-19-north-korea-inevitable\/","title":{"rendered":"Expert: Large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 in North Korea is inevitable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korean authorities suggested in January that they were moving to \u201cadvanced, people-friendly\u201d quarantine protocols, but they are still taking intensive measures regarding disease control. An expert says North Korea could face a pandemic crisis even as the world moves into the endemic stage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jung Jae-hun, a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine of Gachon University\u2019s College of Medicine, recently told Daily NK that a large-scale outbreak in North Korea is inevitable given its low vaccination rate and low levels of immunity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This suggests that even after the border is reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic ends, stopping the virus from entering the country and infecting people will prove difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In particular, Jung said because North Korea\u2019s medical environment is antiquated, an outbreak of COVID-19 could lead to serious harm.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csis.org\/analysis\/north-koreas-covid-19-lockdown-current-status-and-road-ahead\">recent report<\/a> on North Korea\u2019s COVID-19 lockdown, US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) also said a mass outbreak of COVID-19 in North Korea would have no short-term solution because North Koreans have no immunity to infection and few vaccinations were carried out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The report said North Korea apparently had no choice but to enact tough lockdown quarantine measures because it lacks a medical system that can deal with COVID-19.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some people even say dramatic lockdowns were the best quarantine policy the North Korean authorities could adopt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a telephone conversation with Daily NK, Choe Jeong-hun, a senior researcher at Korea University\u2019s Public Policy Research Institute, said the border closure and travel bans have caused major economic damage, while city lockdowns and coercive quarantines have caused deaths. However, he said considering North Korea\u2019s dire internal situation, shutdowns might have been North Korea\u2019s best available option.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prior to the development of the vaccines, all nations found that minimizing infections though isolation and movement bans was the most effective quarantine policy. In the end, it was effective for North Korea, too, given how difficult containing the damage would be if the coronavirus entered the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite this, experts say \u201czero COVID\u201d policies like those pushed by North Korea and China cannot keep infections at zero forever, even if they do delay an outbreak.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is because even after a virus acclimatizes and herd immunity emerges, the virus does not completely disappear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On social media on Mar. 1, Jung said you can control an outbreak through policy in temporary circumstances, but you cannot do so over the long haul. He said the only long-term alternative is to build up immunity through vaccinations and infections.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem is North Korean authorities are refusing vaccine assistance, and they are using the border closure and movement bans as means of internal control.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The international vaccine distribution initiative COVAX Facility earmarked 8.11 million doses of AstraZeneca for North Korea last year. However, Pyongyang refused to accept them, taking issue with both the kind and amount of the vaccine offered.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This year, US drug maker Novavax allotted 252,000 doses of its vaccine for North Korea, but North Korea has yet to indicate it will accept them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">CSIS said in its recent report that North Korea apparently worries that if it accepts the vaccines, it may have to accept monitoring demands, or that introduction of the vaccines could be tied to other matters such as denuclearization talks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The report also mentioned a possible solution, namely, monitoring that highlights \u201ctechnical support\u201d or the deployment to North Korea of at least one \u201chumanitarian activist\u201d to head monitoring activities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Voice of America<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.voanews.com\/a\/un-rights-official-urges-60-million-vaccines-for-north-korea\/6455216.html\"> reported on Mar. 16<\/a> that the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea accepted UNICEF\u2019s application for a sanctions exemption to ship vaccine storage equipment to North Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North Korea\u2019s attitude regarding shipments of vaccine-related equipment bears watching. Only two nations have yet to begin mass vaccinations: North Korea and Eritrea.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"td-post-header\"><em>Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"td-post-header\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/%ec%84%b8%ea%b3%84%ec%a0%81-%ec%97%94%eb%8d%b0%eb%af%b9-%eb%b0%94%eb%9e%8c-%eb%b6%81%ed%95%9c%ec%9d%80-%ec%bd%94%eb%a1%9c%eb%82%98-%eb%8c%80%ec%9c%a0%ed%96%89-%ec%9c%84%ea%b8%b0\/\">Read in Korean<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Korean authorities suggested in January that they were moving to \u201cadvanced, people-friendly\u201d quarantine protocols, but they are still taking intensive measures regarding disease control. An expert says North Korea could face a pandemic crisis even as the world moves into the endemic stage. Jung Jae-hun, a professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":51057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[763],"class_list":["post-51056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-covid-19"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Expert: Large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 in North Korea is inevitable - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/experts-large-scale-outbreak-covid-19-north-korea-inevitable\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Expert: Large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 in North Korea is inevitable\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"North Korean authorities suggested in January that they were moving to \u201cadvanced, people-friendly\u201d quarantine protocols, but they are still taking intensive measures regarding disease control. An expert says North Korea could face a pandemic crisis even as the world moves into the endemic stage. 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An expert says North Korea could face a pandemic crisis even as the world moves into the endemic stage. 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