North Korea and China, mass irrationality

North Korea and China deny basic scientific rationality

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/19/the-guardian-view-on-low-covid-vaccination-rates-not-just-north-korea

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-61533715

President Biden with President Yoon Suk-yeol

We’ve offered vaccines, not only to North Korea but to China as well, and we’re prepared to do that immediately

We’ve got no response

Declined offers from SK and others already, covax

Symptomatic cases, + 220,000 = 2.5 million people have been sickened by “fever”

Under treatment, 741,000

Medicines, oxygen, electricity, frequent blackouts, fridges

Deaths, 66

Nationwide lockdown

Claimed successfully kept Covid out by sealing borders

State media

Herbal tea, gargling salt-water, ibuprofen

Kim Jong-un, officials bungled distribution of national medicine reserves

Mobilised a million health workers, find people with fevers, quarantine

China

Dr. Michael Ryan

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/chinas-covid-plan-unsustainable-due-omicron-84778790

We understand why the initial response of China was to try and suppress infections to the maximum level (but) that strategy is not sustainable

a suppression-only strategy is not a sustainable way to exit the pandemic for any country

Unchecked transmission, North Korea, Eritrea could spur the emergence of new variants

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

zero-COVID, not sustainable

WHO is deeply concerned at the risk of further spread in North Korea,

Worrying numbers of people with underlying conditions

Has asked North Korea to share more data, no response

WHO had offered vaccines, medicines, tests and technical support, no response

UK

Britain reduces its Covid-19 alert level from four to three, Omicron-variant wave of the virus was subsiding.

Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 newly classified as variants of concern
ONS

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/infections

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