Calling His Officials Immature And Slow To Deal With COVID-19 Outbreak, North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un: IncreaseComplexity And Difficulty

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un chairs a Labor Party politburo meeting to discuss the COVID-19 outbreak. (Source: KCNA)

JAKARTA - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has criticized his country's response to the first confirmed case of the COVID-19 infection last week, disappointed by officials he judged inadequately sluggish, state media said Wednesday.

North Korea reported 232.880 more people with fever symptoms, and six more deaths after the country's first receipt of the COVID outbreak last week. However, it is not stated how many people have tested positive for COVID-19.

"Immaturity in the country's capacity to overcome crises increases the complexity and difficulty of fighting a pandemic when time is on," Kim said while chairing a meeting of the ruling Labor Party's Politburo, citing Reuters from KCNA, Wednesday, May 18.

So far, since it first officially confirmed the COVID-19 outbreak, North Korea has reported 1.72 million patients with fever symptoms, including 62 deaths as of Tuesday night.

"The crisis we are facing offers a test board to distinguish between the benefits and drawbacks of all our country's work systems. We must properly research all the phenomena of the emergency situation and take action from a critical and developmental point of view," said Leader Kim.

On the occasion he also underlined the need to concentrate efforts to prevent the spread of the epidemic and cure it for now, under the state emergency epidemic prevention situation.

"Multiple efforts should be made to stabilize people's lives, he stressed the need to more carefully organize work to provide living conditions and supplies of daily necessities and make every effort to meet the population's demand for medical care and ensure conditions for it as much as possible," he said. .

Amid concerns about the lack of a vaccine and adequate medical infrastructure in the isolated country, KCNA said health officials had developed a COVID-19 treatment guide.

The goal is to prevent drug overdoses and other ill-treatment that have led to many of the reported deaths. The guidelines cover individualized treatment for different types of patients, but state media do not specify which drugs are involved in the treatment plan.