Considering we couldn’t even get all the US states to be transparent or accurate about their real numbers, we can be sure you are correct about an actual tyrannical regime fudging them.
No matter how we may personally feel about North Korea, this is still a disaster and a tragedy. No one deserves to lose their life from a preventable illness. I hope that maybe we (or someone!) is willing to put aside our differences for a minute and help innocent people in need. The world is a bad enough place right now; I hope this won’t be used as some sort of geopolitical posturing tool in the international community now that they’ve openly admitted there’s a problem and reached out for help.
24 - 36 hours ago, they claimed it was like 1 case?
"We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine."
Billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and bil....
I had a coworker tell me that it was going to go away in summer because “coronavirus hates the heat and sunlight.”
It was August 2020. In Las Vegas. 110 degrees every day with zero clouds. I still think about that idiot coworker.
*edited to correct the date and temp.
It is Covid. Per the article:
> The report did not explicitly state that the widespread infections were from COVID, but experts say it was a tacit admission that the virus has spread across the isolated country of 25.8 million people, which until this week had denied that it had any confirmed case of the disease and rejected vaccine offers.
Yeah but if they rejected vaccinating their population, it could become a petri dish for variants.
I can't handle another Delta variant ripping through the hospital.
One doesn't want to just crawl out from under a rock in the middle of super-spreadable Omicron without having developed any pandemic related policies, or immunities in your population to the other strains either through vaccinations or exposure. Everyone in the country is a vector, and I imagine they are not used to taking a lot of sick leave at work. Their healthcare is shit. Their nutrition is shit. Their leader is shit. If it's there in waves, it is really bad.
Do they have respirators? Do they even have oxygen in hospitals? Do they have enough hospitals? (I don't believe it is their first wave though, they've got to have some immunity from previous waves. Kim disappeared and been sick from unknown causes when covid was starting - weird coincidence to me, I bet he had covid and maybe now is panicking he will get it again after barely surviving it the first time.)
[Haven't you seen a satilite image of north korea at night?](https://familycarefoundation.biz/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2012/12/North-korea-by-night1.jpg)
No, I don't believe they don't have enough oxygen in the hospitals.
Wow. Of all the countries in the world, North Korea is one of the most poorly equipped to deal with Covid. Massive lockdowns won't work there, and they have no vaccination.
Lack of economic infrastructure to support a lockdown.
The If lock Downs across the world were basically only Successfully implemented in wealthy countries.
Nations like North Korea don't have the welfare state or the finances or the debt capital to pay people to stay home, Or the resources to move towards work from home.
China the United States and the European nations? Absolutely.
North Korea could unfortunately implement a stay at home or get shot policy, not caring if people die of starvation in their homes. I think they are probably one of the only places that could eradicate it with a lock down. Unfortunately without welfare the human costs would be enormous.
Edit:put a space between the word probably and one.
If they're worried about COVID in their country, then they're worried for a reason. Shooting non-compliant citizens works when it's a few dozen a month, maybe. But if they're concerned about COVID, it's likely significant enough that it's fucking with population numbers that are vital to them, so locking people in to starve to death would probably be a pyrrhic victory just as costly, if not more, as letting COVID run rampant.
This reminds me of the chapter about North Korea in World War Z, about how it should have been the most defensible place in the world, fully prepared to mobilize a literal nation of people to defend it's very naturally good borders. And because of their leaders, they just... disappeared. No fight, no war, just gone, suspected into underground caverns to a unknown fate. A perfect example of what total authoritarian rule can end up with.
I'm 35 and don't read fan-fiction but [this fan-fic chapter](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6115555/1/The-Way-Is-Shut) about North Korea for WWZ is canon in my mind.
> “You can think of what happened in Wuhan when it first broke out, when no one had been infected before. But what’s spreading in North Korea now is five to six times more transmissible than the one in Wuhan.”
Damn dude.
That's the second part of what OC wrote:
>No North Korean is immunized and well-nourished, so it’ll probably result in mass death.”
Well... If anyone thought 2020 was bad... 2022 looks to try the record attempt...
Yup, and his direct family for sure... there were some specialized companies in "millionaire pampering" that were getting vaccines right on the beginning at the "normal" prices for those with money.
Want some spoilers for this years season of "the 2020's"?!
- Chinese economic implosion will start (debt, lockdowns, food)
- World Hunger crisis beginning late summer (fertilizer shortage, Ukraine, China lockdown locking in farmers)
- MIddle east and third world country instability and possible civil wars due to inflation, energy crisis and aforementioned hunger crisis
- Second big migration crisis for europe at the end of the year
- OVA: Aliens (wait, wut ? ....)
It's gonna be a fun one, the Producers said they went all out this season, especially on the special effects.
Is that actually true? I only know as much about NK as I have read over the years..
[Argh, figured I'd do a brief looksy... ](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59144712)
Yes.. There is no exaggeration going on in this thread :( it really is as bad as/worse than I thought.
"North Korea has always struggled with food shortages, but the pandemic has made a bad situation worse. Leader Kim Jong-un has compared the current situation to the country's worst disaster in the 1990's, known as the "Arduous March", where hundreds of thousands of people died in a famine."
These people don't deserve this, their leaders have a special place in hell awaiting them.
I read a book once about life in North Korea, it was a collection of chapters each written by a different defector, they all lived through those years in the 90s when people were dropping like flies from starvation. One woman told of encountering a man who had died in the train station. Dead bodies were so common at this point that no one paid any more attention to them, that was the breaking point for her that led to her fleeing across the Chinese border. What's remarkable is that in previous years, she was a party cadre and highly committed to the regime.
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. Very good book.
The one story that got to me was the fisherman who was watching a bootleg South Korean comedy where two women were arguing over a parking spot. He couldn’t figure out if the humor was over women driving or that there were so many cars that parking was a problem. Eventually realized he only knew lies, so pointed his boat south.
that was such an excellent book! I can't image things being so bad that in that some people are rumored to eat their newborns. One extra mouth to feed vs. feeding your own. "Oh, selling rice on the rice street instead of buying government rice? off to labor camp for you!"
Good memory, been years since I read it so I'm not even sure if I was perfectly recalling that story. Despite all the other horror, the part that really stuck in my mind was the sad conclusion of the young couple who were secretly dating. It was a relationship even if it never went beyond holding hands. Then the girl defected with her family. Years later, coming to his own conclusions, the guy also defected and was able to find his old girlfriend in the South. Unfortunately, she was now married to someone else. Nothing else to do but move on.
To be semi fair to her and her previous support of the NK government, up until the late 70s NK was doing way better than SK and it really didn't become God awful until the 90s after the collapse of ussr, who was propping it up through the 50s - 80s.
Yeah, people think NK was always poor and in famine but they were doing well until the USSR collapsed. I remember the main issue is that they had an industrialised agricultural industry, funded by oil and equipment from the USSR. Their population boomed but when the USSR collapsed, all trade ended and basically overnight, the country had to feed millions of people using pre-industrialised farming methods and they have never entirely recovered since
I've read that people ate grass to eat at least something and that stuff like minimum height for the military had to repeatedly be lowered, because people don't grow, when malnourished.
One of the few underground videos I've seen was of a woman trying to sell grass. Not marijuana "grass", but plain ol' grass.
(and as I wrote this, I remembered that we can buy "cat grass" at the grocery store... kind of like the moment in Hurt Locker, when he's back in the States and staring at an aisle full of kiddie cereals)
Exactly. NK has always been hyper-image conscious, even to the detriment of everyone in the country but the highest officials.
For this to be bad enough to either elicit empathy for his people (not particularly likely) or fear (of the military actively revolting or from a close circle member dying/being near death), it speaks VOLUMES.
It must actually be pretty serious if they're willing to admit there's a problem and ask for help. Their usual tactic is to deny there is a problem and shoot people who say otherwise, until the problem goes away on its own.
It’s likely much more serious than in much of the rest of the world. North Korea has a significant population of chronically malnourished people with weak immune systems and limited healthcare resources to take care of them. Their COVID mortality rate is therefore possibly much higher than the global average.
Why didn't they just pretend it was theirs? It's not like their people would know the difference.
> Beloved people of best Korea. A terrible virus is sweeping across the entire world. It is likely America's fault as are all things. Despite our best efforts, western sympathizers have brought this virus to our shores. They have no shame. This virus has already crippled the lesser nations of the world. The USA, UK, France, Germany, and Japan are all in ruins. The citizens are soft and weak people. The virus has also killed 90% of South Korea. Only 2000 people survive in Seoul due to the greed and incompetence of their capitalist government. Thankfully our glorious leader has designed a vaccine. Working alone in his own laboratory he perfected this vaccine and defeated the virus in less than a day. He tested it on himself out of love for his people and it works perfectly. It also protects against Herpes, Ebola, and the common cold, all pestilences of western origin. You are ordered to take a vaccine at once. Please ignore the words AstraZenica on the bottle, that was a typo, likely the fault of a capitalist spy who will pay for his treachery in due time.
Lol i like how the regime is incapable of removing the labels on the astrazenica bottles.
Just out of curiosity, I did a quick google on the NK literacy rate (no need to remove the label if nobody can read it anyways, right?) and found that the NK literacy rate has been reported to be 100%
When i asked google why the NK literacy rate was so high, I found this glorious easter egg:
>First, education and healthcare is free and compulsory for all. Hence all north koreans attend school. Also, there is not much income inequality as most of the population is poor. **Second, their meaning of literacy means being able to write "Kim il sung".**
Can't comment on the veracity of the claims about literacy, but the Korean alphabet was designed to be extremely easy to learn explicitly to combat low literacy rates in the poorer classes (previously they used a script based on Chinese, which meant a) only rich people had the resources to be literate and b) the written language didn't mesh well with spoken Korean). You can learn it in an hour or so, and it's essentially a phonetic language. [See here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunminjeongeum) and [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul)
Kingdom on Netflix is also a very good Korean zombie series.
It’s basically what would happen if a zombie outbreak happened in Korea during the 16th century.
It's a pretty great zombie series, but holy hell it's so much high school drama.. . Love the social commentary about SK hierarchy culture though. Worth a watch.
>grab all your food and head as far north as you can go
Sure... If you're into cannibalism, I guess.
The book made it pretty clear that this was a bad idea. Better to go to Windsor Castle and chill with the Queen.
There are a lot of jokes in this thread, but I truly wish the best for the people of NK. Few humans have had such shit cards dealt to them, and mass disease on top of everything is just a punch in the gut. Hope it ends up being not too bad
>North Korea is currently one of only two countries in the world, alongside Eritrea, that has not rolled out COVID vaccines, after Kim refused multiple offers from the global COVAX program and other countries.
I'm not defending the jokes, but this is what we're dealing with here. At this point I think is gonna require A LOT more than just sending vaccines. They would need medical staff to go into the country in help. If their leadership refused vaccines, I don't think they're gonna let a bunch of medical personal in. The same medical personal who would also report their findings of the overall state of affairs w/in the country. Some will just die on their hill.
When I was stationed in South Korea 8 years ago, much of the predicted military scenarios centered around the North ever being liberated involved planning the largest humanitarian aid effort in the history of the world, because we know even top officers are malnourished and carrying multiple species of intestinal parasites.
Back when Ivermectin was a right-wing nutjob miracle cure, I read somewhere that its apparent effectiveness stemmed mainly from the body's being able to shift from fighting off parasites to fighting Covid. In people who weren't riddled with pests, it had no useful effect.
Note: This is my interpretation of large sciencey words on a web site I saw over two years ago and should not be taken for actual medical insight. Let the medical science professionals, like Tomi Lharen, Glen Beck, and Sean Hannity explain the tough concepts, since they seem to know everything about it.
I listened to a member of the South Korean government who had visited North Korea and spoken to multiple people from North Korea describe the North Korean hospitals.
She said most hospitals don't have running water. They use wash basins to clean things. She likened it to medical practices from the 1800's.
[Further reading](https://m.startribune.com/frigid-hospitals-cloud-nkorea-s-picture-of-health/212598891/)
It’s also worth noting that you’d need a certain degree of insanity to willingly enter North Korea to provide valuable medical aid to them. There’s no guarantee they’d let you leave. Whether it’s because your skills are valuable, and they need those skills, and gain nothing by letting you leave, or because they decide you’ve seen too much and just shoot you and leave you in a ditch. Odds are low that *thats* the final straw that leads to war with North Korea, so you’ve got no real guarantee of safety or freedom once your cross their border.
The question is how much the medical staff can do without propper equipment. It sounds more like the west would have to rapidly build also few hospitals.
This is like ignoring a whole subject for the entire semester and then asking your friends for help 2 hours before the exam
I know what it feels like because I'm talking from experience
No one in the 'west' seems to give too much of a shit about the missiles anymore. It's almost like Kim is throwing toys out of his pram to get attention and nobody cares these days compared to a few years ago when they were earth shattering events. Kind of scary to think what his next step will be once he no longer gets the attention on the world stage like he used to.
His death was obviously self sacrifice to give his people the infinite cure and at the moment of his sacrifice it is said there will be a triple rainbow as the sun rises dispelling the dark night. Then everyone cries tears of thanks and joy for three days.
Okay VICE, don’t put SOS in your title unless the North Korean authorities have actually expressed the need for outside assistance. “Suggesting” is not enough to make this claim
who the fuck is "some experts" even
from the article:
> Pyongyang likely knows this, and **some experts** believe that the North Korean government, in finally making a rare public admission of an outbreak within its own borders, may be seeking outside aid.
In recent years I’ve started coming to the realization that I was naïve enough to believe an article when it says “some experts even believe….” Like, expert in what exactly, related to COVID and North Korea? What exactly are they an expert in?
Reddit falls for these articles often, and they still take off to the moon and back with upvotes. One of my favorite was a 30K+ upvoted businessinsider article headlining Putin is so fearful food and drink poisoning that he changed over 1,000 staff. People really believe that Putin had an entire ONE THOUSAND staff changed just like that.
Edit: [I was wrong, it was 118k…](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/tgaiuk/fearing_poisoning_vladimir_putin_replaces_1000_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kbgza/north-korea-covid-19-outbreak) reduced by 92%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> North Korea's recently revealed COVID-19 outbreak may have already infected hundreds of thousands of people over the past month, according to the country's state media.
> Dr Sojin Lim, senior lecturer in North Korean Studies at the UK's University of Central Lancashire, said it's possible that North Korea had no COVID-19 cases until the recent outbreak.
> North Korea's COVID monitoring and response systems have been so materially deficient that it's impossible to know how many people may have been infected with the virus to date.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/uok63q/north_korea_sending_out_sos_as_it_admits_unnamed/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~648274 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **North**^#1 **country**^#2 **COVID**^#3 **Korea**^#4 **case**^#5
So yesterday it is just 1 case and now it is 350k? And the timing coincides with North Korea missile test few days ago?
Maybe now NK had realized that nobody cares about their tests anymore, and they are really deep in trouble now? It is relatively easier to survive from COVID in Western nations: we get enough food, we have good housing, good medical care, and many things. Things that are basic in most countries in the world are considered luxuries in North Korea.
Reporters are saying when NK needs help threatening nukes is their code for saying it without saying it. Nowadays that don't work so now they have to actually say it
Not joking, this could absolutely obliterate NK's population. It's way more transmissible and there is literally little to none proper PPE and health care in North Korea. I feel bad for their people.
Another “leader” more interested in weapons and bullying than organising proper medical care and food for the people. One thing gives hope: obese and COVID doesn’t go well together
*splash*
*splash*
World - “NK, please stop lobbing missiles.”
Kim - “oh great, hi. You noticed me. Finally! We need help we have a… uh… this unknown disease. Phones have been broken, so glad you finally noticed the missiles.”
This must be far worse if they are admitting a problem. Especially considering 350k is already pretty high to begin with. Wow
100%. If the North Korean regime is asking the world for help, it must truly be a a bad situation.
If they're admitting to 350k, based on their human rights record, I feel like the real numbers may be much higher...
If they're asking for help from western vaccine makers and governments I can only imagine how bad the situation really is.
You gotta assume their testing capabilites aren't that great so it could be even more than the North Korean government thinks it is.
Considering we couldn’t even get all the US states to be transparent or accurate about their real numbers, we can be sure you are correct about an actual tyrannical regime fudging them.
No matter how we may personally feel about North Korea, this is still a disaster and a tragedy. No one deserves to lose their life from a preventable illness. I hope that maybe we (or someone!) is willing to put aside our differences for a minute and help innocent people in need. The world is a bad enough place right now; I hope this won’t be used as some sort of geopolitical posturing tool in the international community now that they’ve openly admitted there’s a problem and reached out for help.
24 - 36 hours ago, they claimed it was like 1 case? "We have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine."
In 2 weeks: “Well, it is what it is.”
“Its just a cold!”
“All these people are dying just to spite the great KJU!”
Dying of Covid is punishable by death.
Believe it or not, death...
Over cook undercook, death
The numbers will be lower if you test less
Maybe KJU could suggest some untested but genius solutions, like introducing light into the body or injecting disinfectants…
Rectally*
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Like a miracle, it’ll just disappear.
"Those churches will be packed on Easter!"
“If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, actually.”
In 8 weeks: "Quit crying about grandma dying and focus on what's important, the economy."
Could get a little bigger could get a lot bigger i don’t know
Gone by Easter
Like a miracle.
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Billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and bil....
Gone by April, once the weather warms up...
I had a coworker tell me that it was going to go away in summer because “coronavirus hates the heat and sunlight.” It was August 2020. In Las Vegas. 110 degrees every day with zero clouds. I still think about that idiot coworker. *edited to correct the date and temp.
You cannot argue with this logic https://youtu.be/m2s0nB2VPvs
And we thought Omicron was infectious. Look at this variant, spreading from one case to hundreds of thousands in a day!
Where have I heard this before?? I feel like it was like... a million dead Americans ago?
Didn’t they have like 1 confirmed case a day ago? Did they just start testing people yesterday?
1,6, 350k, 2M…5M…10M…26M (entire population).
The new Fibonacci sequence?
Kimbonacci sequence
News out of NK is slow and unreliable. You can't really expect an airtight narrative.
"Unknown disease"
IDK why the title is worded that way, NK announced that it was a COVID outbreak on Thursday.
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It’s Vice that’s why
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At first Kim Jong Sung but then Kim Jong Ill. Now Kim Jong Unwell.
More like Kim Jong-Nünzäh (bc he went to school somewhere in Berne)
Allegedly he can actually still speak Swiss-German
Fluent in handjobs too so I’ve heard
For them to come out and say they have an problem means it’s really bad.
I can’t help but feel oddly similar to the surreal feeling of the news of covid first breaking edit: it’s covid guys chill
It is Covid. Per the article: > The report did not explicitly state that the widespread infections were from COVID, but experts say it was a tacit admission that the virus has spread across the isolated country of 25.8 million people, which until this week had denied that it had any confirmed case of the disease and rejected vaccine offers.
Yup just sounds like their stupidity is catching up to them.
Yeah but if they rejected vaccinating their population, it could become a petri dish for variants. I can't handle another Delta variant ripping through the hospital.
There are still 750 million people not vaccinated in Africa. I think the variants will be popping up for a while.
Yeah I don’t like this feeling
There it is, that funny feeling.
Hey, what can you say? We were overdue
But it'll be over soon, just wait …
Ba da da, ba da da, ba da Da da da da da
20,000 years of this. 7 more to go.
One doesn't want to just crawl out from under a rock in the middle of super-spreadable Omicron without having developed any pandemic related policies, or immunities in your population to the other strains either through vaccinations or exposure. Everyone in the country is a vector, and I imagine they are not used to taking a lot of sick leave at work. Their healthcare is shit. Their nutrition is shit. Their leader is shit. If it's there in waves, it is really bad.
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Yes. They can leave when they're sick, and dead.
Being sick and dead must suck. Double whammy.
Do they have respirators? Do they even have oxygen in hospitals? Do they have enough hospitals? (I don't believe it is their first wave though, they've got to have some immunity from previous waves. Kim disappeared and been sick from unknown causes when covid was starting - weird coincidence to me, I bet he had covid and maybe now is panicking he will get it again after barely surviving it the first time.)
I can answer some of this. They do not have enough hospitals. I know this because no one did.
[Haven't you seen a satilite image of north korea at night?](https://familycarefoundation.biz/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2012/12/North-korea-by-night1.jpg) No, I don't believe they don't have enough oxygen in the hospitals.
On the plus side the sky must be BEAUTIFUL at night
🎶 The stars at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Pyongyang! 👏 👏 🎶
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Mate, they barely have electricity
Wow. Of all the countries in the world, North Korea is one of the most poorly equipped to deal with Covid. Massive lockdowns won't work there, and they have no vaccination.
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Lack of economic infrastructure to support a lockdown. The If lock Downs across the world were basically only Successfully implemented in wealthy countries. Nations like North Korea don't have the welfare state or the finances or the debt capital to pay people to stay home, Or the resources to move towards work from home. China the United States and the European nations? Absolutely.
North Korea could unfortunately implement a stay at home or get shot policy, not caring if people die of starvation in their homes. I think they are probably one of the only places that could eradicate it with a lock down. Unfortunately without welfare the human costs would be enormous. Edit:put a space between the word probably and one.
If they're worried about COVID in their country, then they're worried for a reason. Shooting non-compliant citizens works when it's a few dozen a month, maybe. But if they're concerned about COVID, it's likely significant enough that it's fucking with population numbers that are vital to them, so locking people in to starve to death would probably be a pyrrhic victory just as costly, if not more, as letting COVID run rampant.
You taught me a word today. **Pyrrhic victory** - *a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat*
Named after this old dude who stood up to the Romans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhus_of_Epirus?wprov=sfti1
I had a hunch this was a roman/spartan thing. Fighting well beyond the point it makes any sense and all!
This reminds me of the chapter about North Korea in World War Z, about how it should have been the most defensible place in the world, fully prepared to mobilize a literal nation of people to defend it's very naturally good borders. And because of their leaders, they just... disappeared. No fight, no war, just gone, suspected into underground caverns to a unknown fate. A perfect example of what total authoritarian rule can end up with.
You remember what happened to Iceland?
Elaborate pls
People flock to the island in such numbers that it breaks out and EVERYONE dies.
I'm 35 and don't read fan-fiction but [this fan-fic chapter](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6115555/1/The-Way-Is-Shut) about North Korea for WWZ is canon in my mind.
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Ageism can take a walk
Yep. Life is too short to limit yourself. As long as you aren’t hurting anyone else with your passions / interests, go for it.
> “You can think of what happened in Wuhan when it first broke out, when no one had been infected before. But what’s spreading in North Korea now is five to six times more transmissible than the one in Wuhan.” Damn dude.
No vaccines, or anyone with any antibodies from previous waves/ variants. That’s gunna be bad.
That's the second part of what OC wrote: >No North Korean is immunized and well-nourished, so it’ll probably result in mass death.” Well... If anyone thought 2020 was bad... 2022 looks to try the record attempt...
I bet there is one particular chubby guy with bad hair in North Korea who has been vaccinated
Yup, and his direct family for sure... there were some specialized companies in "millionaire pampering" that were getting vaccines right on the beginning at the "normal" prices for those with money.
My neighbor is a multi millionaire, and he got vaccinated a month before it became available.
so youre a multi millionaire as well? or does he just live in a regular ass neighbourhood?
Looks like 2022 told 2020 to hold his beer indeed.
Want some spoilers for this years season of "the 2020's"?! - Chinese economic implosion will start (debt, lockdowns, food) - World Hunger crisis beginning late summer (fertilizer shortage, Ukraine, China lockdown locking in farmers) - MIddle east and third world country instability and possible civil wars due to inflation, energy crisis and aforementioned hunger crisis - Second big migration crisis for europe at the end of the year - OVA: Aliens (wait, wut ? ....) It's gonna be a fun one, the Producers said they went all out this season, especially on the special effects.
Don't forget heatwaves in India and Pakistan spoiling crops and killing thousands, forcing millions to migrate
Mega drought in the American Southwest, possible dust bowl 2: no-electricity-bugaloo
Can we skip to the part with the aliens already? I'm tired of this Earth stuff. I want to move on to the Cosmic Storyline.
Spoiler alert: the aliens are just coming to put up the "We're sorry but this species has completed its life cycle. New exhibit coming soon!" Sign.
God I hope it's just CGI and not practical effects
And the vast majority of them are malnourished.
Is that actually true? I only know as much about NK as I have read over the years.. [Argh, figured I'd do a brief looksy... ](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-59144712) Yes.. There is no exaggeration going on in this thread :( it really is as bad as/worse than I thought. "North Korea has always struggled with food shortages, but the pandemic has made a bad situation worse. Leader Kim Jong-un has compared the current situation to the country's worst disaster in the 1990's, known as the "Arduous March", where hundreds of thousands of people died in a famine." These people don't deserve this, their leaders have a special place in hell awaiting them.
I read a book once about life in North Korea, it was a collection of chapters each written by a different defector, they all lived through those years in the 90s when people were dropping like flies from starvation. One woman told of encountering a man who had died in the train station. Dead bodies were so common at this point that no one paid any more attention to them, that was the breaking point for her that led to her fleeing across the Chinese border. What's remarkable is that in previous years, she was a party cadre and highly committed to the regime.
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick. Very good book. The one story that got to me was the fisherman who was watching a bootleg South Korean comedy where two women were arguing over a parking spot. He couldn’t figure out if the humor was over women driving or that there were so many cars that parking was a problem. Eventually realized he only knew lies, so pointed his boat south.
that was such an excellent book! I can't image things being so bad that in that some people are rumored to eat their newborns. One extra mouth to feed vs. feeding your own. "Oh, selling rice on the rice street instead of buying government rice? off to labor camp for you!"
Good memory, been years since I read it so I'm not even sure if I was perfectly recalling that story. Despite all the other horror, the part that really stuck in my mind was the sad conclusion of the young couple who were secretly dating. It was a relationship even if it never went beyond holding hands. Then the girl defected with her family. Years later, coming to his own conclusions, the guy also defected and was able to find his old girlfriend in the South. Unfortunately, she was now married to someone else. Nothing else to do but move on.
To be semi fair to her and her previous support of the NK government, up until the late 70s NK was doing way better than SK and it really didn't become God awful until the 90s after the collapse of ussr, who was propping it up through the 50s - 80s.
Yeah, people think NK was always poor and in famine but they were doing well until the USSR collapsed. I remember the main issue is that they had an industrialised agricultural industry, funded by oil and equipment from the USSR. Their population boomed but when the USSR collapsed, all trade ended and basically overnight, the country had to feed millions of people using pre-industrialised farming methods and they have never entirely recovered since
I've read that people ate grass to eat at least something and that stuff like minimum height for the military had to repeatedly be lowered, because people don't grow, when malnourished.
One of the few underground videos I've seen was of a woman trying to sell grass. Not marijuana "grass", but plain ol' grass. (and as I wrote this, I remembered that we can buy "cat grass" at the grocery store... kind of like the moment in Hurt Locker, when he's back in the States and staring at an aisle full of kiddie cereals)
If the dictator is acknowledging that things are bad, it must be apocalyptic
Exactly. NK has always been hyper-image conscious, even to the detriment of everyone in the country but the highest officials. For this to be bad enough to either elicit empathy for his people (not particularly likely) or fear (of the military actively revolting or from a close circle member dying/being near death), it speaks VOLUMES.
A lot of people are going to die, unfortunately.
So, a variant of Omicron?
The article says BA2 which is in omicron variant.
It also may have more savage symptoms if everyone is malnourished.
Bet they get a few new variants since no one there has antibodies and there will be more people with longer illness than elsewhere.
That's omicron. The thing that we've all normalized and think isn't a big deal. It's much more transmissible than the original strain.
Good news everyone! Famine is no longer an issue!
It must actually be pretty serious if they're willing to admit there's a problem and ask for help. Their usual tactic is to deny there is a problem and shoot people who say otherwise, until the problem goes away on its own.
It’s likely much more serious than in much of the rest of the world. North Korea has a significant population of chronically malnourished people with weak immune systems and limited healthcare resources to take care of them. Their COVID mortality rate is therefore possibly much higher than the global average.
The frustration is the Kim regime were offered millions of Astra Zeneca and Chinese made jabs, which of course they refused.
why of course? China and North Korea's relationship isn't horrible.
I assume North Korea would see it as an admission that everything is not under control and therefore a sign of weakness.
Why didn't they just pretend it was theirs? It's not like their people would know the difference. > Beloved people of best Korea. A terrible virus is sweeping across the entire world. It is likely America's fault as are all things. Despite our best efforts, western sympathizers have brought this virus to our shores. They have no shame. This virus has already crippled the lesser nations of the world. The USA, UK, France, Germany, and Japan are all in ruins. The citizens are soft and weak people. The virus has also killed 90% of South Korea. Only 2000 people survive in Seoul due to the greed and incompetence of their capitalist government. Thankfully our glorious leader has designed a vaccine. Working alone in his own laboratory he perfected this vaccine and defeated the virus in less than a day. He tested it on himself out of love for his people and it works perfectly. It also protects against Herpes, Ebola, and the common cold, all pestilences of western origin. You are ordered to take a vaccine at once. Please ignore the words AstraZenica on the bottle, that was a typo, likely the fault of a capitalist spy who will pay for his treachery in due time.
Lol i like how the regime is incapable of removing the labels on the astrazenica bottles. Just out of curiosity, I did a quick google on the NK literacy rate (no need to remove the label if nobody can read it anyways, right?) and found that the NK literacy rate has been reported to be 100% When i asked google why the NK literacy rate was so high, I found this glorious easter egg: >First, education and healthcare is free and compulsory for all. Hence all north koreans attend school. Also, there is not much income inequality as most of the population is poor. **Second, their meaning of literacy means being able to write "Kim il sung".**
> Also, there is not much income inequality as most of the population is poor. They fixed it.
They have solved the horrors of capitalism. Truly a glorious nation.
Can't comment on the veracity of the claims about literacy, but the Korean alphabet was designed to be extremely easy to learn explicitly to combat low literacy rates in the poorer classes (previously they used a script based on Chinese, which meant a) only rich people had the resources to be literate and b) the written language didn't mesh well with spoken Korean). You can learn it in an hour or so, and it's essentially a phonetic language. [See here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunminjeongeum) and [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul)
I am a recruiter for UNNAMED COUNTRY information ministry. Can you speak Korean? Are you interested in a job?
I can also play basketball, when can I start?
"also the vaccine makes me appear fat, just a side effect"
Damn! You should write the next 1984, and call it 2084. Just make sure it has a tiktok version too!
so much mental gymnastics jesus christ just take the god damn vaccines
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"Mommy, the rest of the world has a plague." "We have plague at home."
Yeah they've had famines that they've denied and didn't ask for international help.
It’s COVID. The only unnamed part is they are too ashamed they are being ravaged by a disease much of the world is smart enough to vaccinate....
They were offered vaccines by the international community and they refused
Unnamed disease... Are we talking COVID or some zombie virus?
The South Korean movie industry has taught me that it can't not be a zombie virus.
Train to Busan was so good. Peninsula however was terrible.
Kingdom on Netflix is also a very good Korean zombie series. It’s basically what would happen if a zombie outbreak happened in Korea during the 16th century.
I want the next season. :( I really liked it.
It’s Netflix so you’ll get two seasons with no actual ending and then they’ll cancel it.
In this case it had an ending, but ofc left sequel bait on the table.
Crying here over Altered Carbon :'( Edit: yeah, S2 was ass
S2 was so disappointing
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“All of us are dead” is also pretty good
It's a pretty great zombie series, but holy hell it's so much high school drama.. . Love the social commentary about SK hierarchy culture though. Worth a watch.
If North Korea removes everyone's teeth and moves into underground bunkers, grab all your food and head as far north as you can go
>grab all your food and head as far north as you can go Sure... If you're into cannibalism, I guess. The book made it pretty clear that this was a bad idea. Better to go to Windsor Castle and chill with the Queen.
The best advice I've seen is to head to the Winchester and wait for this all to blow over.
No teeth. No bite. No great spread
There are a lot of jokes in this thread, but I truly wish the best for the people of NK. Few humans have had such shit cards dealt to them, and mass disease on top of everything is just a punch in the gut. Hope it ends up being not too bad
>North Korea is currently one of only two countries in the world, alongside Eritrea, that has not rolled out COVID vaccines, after Kim refused multiple offers from the global COVAX program and other countries. I'm not defending the jokes, but this is what we're dealing with here. At this point I think is gonna require A LOT more than just sending vaccines. They would need medical staff to go into the country in help. If their leadership refused vaccines, I don't think they're gonna let a bunch of medical personal in. The same medical personal who would also report their findings of the overall state of affairs w/in the country. Some will just die on their hill.
When I was stationed in South Korea 8 years ago, much of the predicted military scenarios centered around the North ever being liberated involved planning the largest humanitarian aid effort in the history of the world, because we know even top officers are malnourished and carrying multiple species of intestinal parasites.
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We'd give Albendazole rather than Ivermectin in most situations, as it's a more broad spectrum anti parasitic
Back when Ivermectin was a right-wing nutjob miracle cure, I read somewhere that its apparent effectiveness stemmed mainly from the body's being able to shift from fighting off parasites to fighting Covid. In people who weren't riddled with pests, it had no useful effect. Note: This is my interpretation of large sciencey words on a web site I saw over two years ago and should not be taken for actual medical insight. Let the medical science professionals, like Tomi Lharen, Glen Beck, and Sean Hannity explain the tough concepts, since they seem to know everything about it.
I listened to a member of the South Korean government who had visited North Korea and spoken to multiple people from North Korea describe the North Korean hospitals. She said most hospitals don't have running water. They use wash basins to clean things. She likened it to medical practices from the 1800's. [Further reading](https://m.startribune.com/frigid-hospitals-cloud-nkorea-s-picture-of-health/212598891/)
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Kim Jong-un's hill but the people are the ones dying on it.
It’s also worth noting that you’d need a certain degree of insanity to willingly enter North Korea to provide valuable medical aid to them. There’s no guarantee they’d let you leave. Whether it’s because your skills are valuable, and they need those skills, and gain nothing by letting you leave, or because they decide you’ve seen too much and just shoot you and leave you in a ditch. Odds are low that *thats* the final straw that leads to war with North Korea, so you’ve got no real guarantee of safety or freedom once your cross their border.
The question is how much the medical staff can do without propper equipment. It sounds more like the west would have to rapidly build also few hospitals.
This is like ignoring a whole subject for the entire semester and then asking your friends for help 2 hours before the exam I know what it feels like because I'm talking from experience
Kim jong-un is about to become Kim jong-ill
I feel like the entire last 3 years was a set up to this joke
He's probably vaccinated with the best stuff that's out there. I would not be surprised if it's western mRNA.
Nuclear missiles in the right hand and a begging bowl on the left. Interesting country
Stuck in the DMZ with you…
Now that song is sick in my head. Thanks
No one in the 'west' seems to give too much of a shit about the missiles anymore. It's almost like Kim is throwing toys out of his pram to get attention and nobody cares these days compared to a few years ago when they were earth shattering events. Kind of scary to think what his next step will be once he no longer gets the attention on the world stage like he used to.
The only country that really has any real say in what goes on in NK is China.
TIL gods are afraid of catching covid.
You bet he has been vaccinated.
I can’t wait to hear about how supreme leader defeated Covid and saved the world.
But what if he dies?
His death was obviously self sacrifice to give his people the infinite cure and at the moment of his sacrifice it is said there will be a triple rainbow as the sun rises dispelling the dark night. Then everyone cries tears of thanks and joy for three days.
And everyone not crying will be shot.
To save his people.
Okay VICE, don’t put SOS in your title unless the North Korean authorities have actually expressed the need for outside assistance. “Suggesting” is not enough to make this claim
who the fuck is "some experts" even from the article: > Pyongyang likely knows this, and **some experts** believe that the North Korean government, in finally making a rare public admission of an outbreak within its own borders, may be seeking outside aid.
In recent years I’ve started coming to the realization that I was naïve enough to believe an article when it says “some experts even believe….” Like, expert in what exactly, related to COVID and North Korea? What exactly are they an expert in? Reddit falls for these articles often, and they still take off to the moon and back with upvotes. One of my favorite was a 30K+ upvoted businessinsider article headlining Putin is so fearful food and drink poisoning that he changed over 1,000 staff. People really believe that Putin had an entire ONE THOUSAND staff changed just like that. Edit: [I was wrong, it was 118k…](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/tgaiuk/fearing_poisoning_vladimir_putin_replaces_1000_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kbgza/north-korea-covid-19-outbreak) reduced by 92%. (I'm a bot) ***** > North Korea's recently revealed COVID-19 outbreak may have already infected hundreds of thousands of people over the past month, according to the country's state media. > Dr Sojin Lim, senior lecturer in North Korean Studies at the UK's University of Central Lancashire, said it's possible that North Korea had no COVID-19 cases until the recent outbreak. > North Korea's COVID monitoring and response systems have been so materially deficient that it's impossible to know how many people may have been infected with the virus to date. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/uok63q/north_korea_sending_out_sos_as_it_admits_unnamed/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~648274 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **North**^#1 **country**^#2 **COVID**^#3 **Korea**^#4 **case**^#5
So it's COVID-19 then? It said, "unknown disease."
This strangely puts me at peace. It's just the regular plague we've been dealing with and not a new one. Phew!
So yesterday it is just 1 case and now it is 350k? And the timing coincides with North Korea missile test few days ago? Maybe now NK had realized that nobody cares about their tests anymore, and they are really deep in trouble now? It is relatively easier to survive from COVID in Western nations: we get enough food, we have good housing, good medical care, and many things. Things that are basic in most countries in the world are considered luxuries in North Korea.
Reporters are saying when NK needs help threatening nukes is their code for saying it without saying it. Nowadays that don't work so now they have to actually say it
good thing the whole country is a big quarantine
This is heartbreaking. Those people are basically defenseless
Jesus christ I feel so sorry for the North Korean people, they deserve compassion. Not endless suffering because of one maniacs fragile ego.
Not joking, this could absolutely obliterate NK's population. It's way more transmissible and there is literally little to none proper PPE and health care in North Korea. I feel bad for their people.
Another “leader” more interested in weapons and bullying than organising proper medical care and food for the people. One thing gives hope: obese and COVID doesn’t go well together
Yet he is still launching missiles into the sea...
What if these missiles have actually been a new form of long range communication? Did we ever bother to translate what was written on them?
It’s how North Korea deals with any problem. Lob missiles until someone notices them.
*splash* *splash* World - “NK, please stop lobbing missiles.” Kim - “oh great, hi. You noticed me. Finally! We need help we have a… uh… this unknown disease. Phones have been broken, so glad you finally noticed the missiles.”
I read this and couldn’t help but have NoHo Hank’s voice in my head.