There is no sign that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been inoculated against COVID-19 and his country hasn't received any foreign vaccines, South Korea's spy agency says.
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center front, stands with Politburo members and other senior officials in entrance hall of the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, July 8, 2021. Kim made a just-after-midnight appearance together with an entourage of top officials, to pay his respects to North Korea’s past leader Kim Il Sung at a giant palace on the outskirts of Pyongyang.
COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to ship COVID-19 vaccines worldwide, said in February that North Korea could receive 1.9 million doses in the first half of the year. But the shipment hasn’t been made, and there have been no reports that North Korea has tried to secure vaccines elsewhere for its 26 million people.
Kim Jong Un recently berated top officials for “crucial” failures in coronavirus prevention that he said caused a “great crisis.” But his government continues to claim a perfect record in fending off the virus from its territory, an assertion that is widely questioned by outside experts. According to the NIS briefing, North Korea had planned to reopen its border with China in April but shelved the idea due to a shortage of disinfecting equipment, Ha said.
Kim has repeatedly urged the North Korean public to unite under his family’s leadership to build a self-reliant economy and withstand pandemic-related difficulties.