North Korea's Kim Jong Un Attends Funeral Maskless Amid Covid Outbreak
Published Date: 5/23/2022
Source: Bloomberg Quicktake: Now
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended a mass funeral for a top official without a mask during the country's Covid-19 outbreak, state media showed. The official Korean Central News Agency said Kim attended the funeral Sunday of Hyon Chol Hae, a Korean People's Army marshal who reportedly played a key role in grooming him as the country's next leader before Kim's father died in late 2011. State media photos showed a bare-faced Kim carrying Hyon's coffin with other men wearing masks before the burial at the national cemetery. State TV showed video of Kim being handed a shovel at the cemetery before he cast it aside and bent down to use his bare hands to sprinkle earth over the coffin. KCNA said "a great many" soldiers and citizens earlier turned out along streets to express their condolences when Hyon's coffin was moved to the cemetery. North Korea has maintained the much-disputed claim that its suspected coronavirus outbreak is subsiding. Since admitting to an outbreak of the omicron variant earlier this month, North Korea has only stated how many people have fevers daily, and has only identified a few of the cases as Covid-19. Its state media said Monday that 2.8 million people have fallen ill due to an unidentified fever but only 68 of them died since late April, an extremely low fatality rate if the illness is Covid-19 as suspected. North Korea has limited testing capability for that many sick people, but some experts say it is also likely underreporting mortalities to protect Kim from political damage. Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Subscribe to our newest channel Quicktake Explained: https://bit.ly/3iERrup Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/qt/live, or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app. Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake: https://cor.us/surveys/27AF30 Connect with us on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloomberg Breaking News on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloombergQuickTakeNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/quicktake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quicktake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake