Bombay Durpun - North Korea fires missiles after Covid cases prompt Kim to order lockdown

Hours after the shock announcement -- the first time the nuclear-armed country has admitted to having Covid cases -- Seoul's military said it had detected three short-range ballistic missiles fired from near Pyongyang.

The launch, one of more than a dozen sanctions-busting weapons tests so far this year, comes shortly after Washington warned that Kim's regime could test a nuke any day, with satellite images indicating fresh activity at nuclear sites.

Earlier Thursday, North Korea said it had moved into a "maximum emergency epidemic prevention system" after patients with fevers in Pyongyang tested positive for the "Omicron BA.2 variant" of Covid.

Kim, wearing a mask on state television for the first time, oversaw an emergency politburo meeting to discuss the outbreak and "called on all the cities and counties of the whole country to thoroughly lock down their areas".

Kim told the meeting that the goal was to "quickly cure the infections in order to eradicate the source of the virus spread," official news agency KCNA said, without specifying how many cases had been detected.

With its 25 million people not vaccinated against Covid, North Korea's crumbling health infrastructure would struggle to deal with a major outbreak, experts say.

- 'Continuing provocations' -

South Korea's military said the short-range ballistic missiles Pyongyang tested Thursday flew 360 km (220 miles) at an altitude of 90 km.

New President Yoon Suk-yeol's administration slammed North Korea's "continuing provocations with a ballistic missile launch despite the outbreak of coronavirus," his security office said after a meeting.

By following its reporting of Covid cases with a missile test, North Korea is signalling that "coronavirus control and its pursuit of national defence are two separate things," Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies said.

"It is now reasonable to assume it could also conduct a nuclear test with Kim Jong Un's greenlight at any moment," he added.

- No vaccines -

"For Pyongyang to publicly admit Omicron cases, the public health situation must be serious," Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul said.

"Pyongyang will likely double down on lockdowns, even though the failure of China's zero-Covid strategy suggests that approach won't work against the Omicron variant."

North Korea has turned down offers of Covid vaccines from the World Health Organization, China and Russia.

Accepting vaccines through the WHO's Covax scheme "requires transparency over how vaccines are distributed," Go Myong-hyun, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, told AFP.

"That's why North Korea rejected it," Go said.

North Korea is surrounded by countries that have battled -- or are still fighting to control -- significant Omicron-fuelled outbreaks.

South Korea, which has high rates of vaccination, has recently eased almost all Covid restrictions, with cases sharply down after a spike in March.

China, the world's only major economy to still maintain a zero-Covid policy, is battling multiple Omicron outbreaks -- with some major cities, including financial hub Shanghai, under strict stay-at-home orders.

It appears North Korea will try to avoid China's strict measures, which have seen millions of people locked into their apartments for several weeks, including in Beijing, said Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute.

But even less harsh measures would create a "severe food shortage and the same chaos China is now facing," he said.

Seoul-based specialist site NK News reported that areas of Pyongyang had already been locked down for two days, with reports of panic buying.

- Nuke test? -

South Korea's president, who was sworn in Tuesday, has vowed to get tough with Pyongyang after five years of failed diplomacy.

After high-profile talks collapsed in 2019, North Korea has doubled down on weapons testing, conducting a blitz of launches so far this year, including intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Satellite imagery indicates North Korea is preparing to conduct a nuclear test, and the United States has warned this could come as soon as this month.

The Covid outbreak could potentially disrupt their military programme, analysts said -- or accelerate it.

"There is a possibility of delaying the nuclear test in order to focus on overcoming the coronavirus," Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told AFP.

But he said if public fears over an outbreak were to spread, Kim might go ahead with a test "to divert this fear to another place".

The Sejong Institute's Cheong agreed that more weapons tests were likely for the regime to "boost the morale of North Korean citizens" in light of the Covid situation.

D.Jayaraman--BD