North Korea's Kim orders tightening of anti-virus measures amid global COVID-19 pandemic: Report

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered a tightening of state emergency anti-coronavirus systems when confronted with the worldwide pandemic, as he presided over a meeting of the politburo of the ruling Workers Party, state news agency KCNA stated on Monday (Nov 16).

The meeting came amid financial and political uncertainty surrounding the global COVID-19 pandemic that's putting additional pressure on the North’s economy, already battered by international sanctions aimed at stopping its nuclear program.

Making his first general public appearance in 25 times, Kim stressed the necessity to keep a higher alert and intensify the anti-epidemic job, KCNA reported.

The meeting discussed an unspecified "serious crime" committed by party officials at the Pyongyang University of Remedies. Different officials at the Central Committee and additional government agencies "shielded, connived and fostered the crime" by failing to tighten oversight over the university, KCNA said, but didn't specify if the crime was linked to the coronavirus.

North Korea had tested a lot more than 12,000 people and reported no confirmed cases of the coronavirus, as of early November, based on the World Health Organization.

A complete of 6,173 persons, eight of whom were foreigners, were detected as suspected cases and 174 people were quarantined in the last week of October, the WHO said.

A lot more than 54 million people have already been reported to get infected by the novel coronavirus globally and 1,312,334 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

Kim had called on his country to attempt an 80-working day campaign to achieve its goals atlanta divorce attorneys sector before a congress in January to choose a new five-year plan.

North Korea's premier, Kim Tok Hun, visited much equipment complex and a notebook factory to the southeast of Pyongyang to go over efforts to attain those goals, KCNA reported on Monday.

"At the Taean Major Machine Complex, he gave pep-talks to its workers working hard to create custom-built equipment before routine amid the intensive 80-day time campaign," KCNA reported.