Report: North Korea Privately Asking for COVID-19 Aid While Reporting Zero Cases

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Officials in North Korea, which has yet to report any cases of COVID-19 within its borders, are privately asking for medical aid, according to reports.

Both the Financial Times and Reuters reported last week that the Norks privately reached out to officials in other countries for aid, even though, officially the number of reported cases in the country remains at zero.

“The government has testing kits for COVID-19 and they know how to use them, but [the number of kits are] not sufficient, hence, [officials are] requesting all organizations … to support them in this regard,” a source told the Times.

Reuters reported that North Korean officials have asked aid organizations for supplies such as masks and testing kits, though such supplies were reportedly awaiting entry on North Korea’s heavily protected border.

Some aid agencies reportedly had to get emergency sanction exemptions from the United Nations so they could send shipments, and were being held up by North Korea’s border controls imposed in a bid to shut out the virus.

“North Koreans need assistance and have asked for it, but things are now on hold,” one aid group official familiar with the efforts told Reuters.

Some media outlets in South Korea have reported that the secretive communist regime is concealing the number of its coronavirus cases from the world, according to Business Insider.