North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has denounced his country's response to the coronavirus pandemic and ordered the army to help distribute medicine.
State media said 50 people had died since it first reported an outbreak of Covid-19 last week, and that more than one million have been sickened by what Pyongyang is referring to as "fever".
Mr Kim has ordered nationwide lockdowns to try to slow the spread of disease through the unvaccinated population. In a sign of how serious the situation may be, he "strongly criticised" healthcare officials for what he called a botched response to epidemic prevention, specifically a failure to keep pharmacies open 'round-the-clock to distribute medicine.
Mr Kim ordered the army to get to work "on immediately stabilising the supply of medicines in Pyongyang", the capital, where Omicron was detected last week.