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The post South Korean doctors find risk factors for severe COVID-19 cases appeared first on Virus Reports.
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The post South Korean doctors find risk factors for severe COVID-19 cases appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post South Korean doctors find risk factors for severe COVID-19 cases appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean doctors have found certain underlying conditions that may make some COVID-19 patients more severely affected by the disease, a professor at Yeungnam University Medical Center said on Wednesday.
FILE PHOTO: A computer image created by Nexu Science Communication together with Trinity College in Dublin, shows a model structurally representative of a betacoronavirus which is the type of virus linked to COVID-19, better known as the coronavirus linked to the Wuhan outbreak, shared with Reuters on February 18, 2020. NEXU Science Communication/via REUTERS
The findings could help doctors identify and prioritise high-risk patients at an early stage of the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Ahn June-hong, professor of internal medicine, told Reuters.
Medical experts and epidemiologists are investigating risk factors for patients who develop severe cases of the disease, which has killed more than 400,000 globally since it first emerged late last year in China.
In a paper published by the Journal of Korean Medical Science on June 2, Ahn and other South Korean doctors wrote that diabetes, high body temperature, low oxygen saturation and pre-existing cardiac injury were shown to be the prognostic factors for severe COVID-19.
The team of doctors observed 110 coronavirus patients at a hospital in Daegu, the epicentre of South Korea’s outbreak, from February 19 to April 15.
Of the 110 patients in the Yeungnam University Medical Center, 23 developed a severe case of COVID-19.
Because such patients were significantly older than others, they were more likely to have diabetes and lower peripheral oxygen saturation, the paper said.
The coronavirus patients with at least three of the four prognostic factors developed severe conditions, Professor Ahn said.
“I believe using prognostic factors of severe COVID-19 patients will provide an opportunity for physicians to offer those risk-high patients with the best medical care from the early stage of the disease,” he said.
As of midnight on Wednesday, South Korea reported 45 new cases, bringing the country’s total to 11,947, with 276 deaths.
Reporting by Sangmi Cha; Editing by Stephen Coates
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]]>The post South Korean Research Boosts Theory That Retesting Positive for Covid-19 Is Fluke, Not Relapse appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>SEOUL—South Korean health officials found that a group of patients who tested positive a second time for the coronavirus hadn’t passed the disease on to others, lending credence to the possibility the suspected relapses were a testing fluke rather than the re-emergence of an active infection.
The research remains preliminary, and health authorities continue to investigate whether recovered patients develop immunity to the virus or whether it can go dormant and emerge later.
…
The post South Korean Research Boosts Theory That Retesting Positive for Covid-19 Is Fluke, Not Relapse appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post North Korean state media reports Kim Jong Un made first public appearance in weeks appeared first on Virus Reports.
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The post North Korean state media reports Kim Jong Un made first public appearance in weeks appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Appears In Public, Ending Weeks Of Speculation About His Health appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has reportedly made his first public appearance in two weeks on Friday by attending the completion ceremony of a fertilizer plant in the central southeastern town of Suncheon, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap and the North Korean state-run news agency KCNA.
The fertilizer plant may be connected to the nation’s covert nuclear ambitions. Margaret Croy, a researcher of East Asian nuclear proliferation told Newsweek that a recent study suggested that the country’s fertilizer factories could help it produce nuclear material by extracting uranium from phosphoric acids.
Kim has accelerated his country’s nuclear efforts while also emphasizing other economic and infrastructural developments since becoming national leader in 2011.
His appearance on Friday follows a two-week period of public speculation and rumors about his health following an April 20 rumor, sparked by an anonymous source featured in the South Korea-based media outlet Daily NK, stating that he was in ill health after undergoing heart surgery on April 12.
U.S. intelligence subsequently discounted these rumors. Two U.S. officials told Newsweek on April 21 they had no reason to consider Kim as suffering from any sort of serious illness or grave health concern. Around the same time, Yonhap reported a South Korean government official who said no unusual reports from North Korea suggested that Kim was ill.
Ed Jones/AFP/Getty
Speculation about Kim’s health was fueled after he missed the Day of the Sun celebrations dedicated to his frequently exalted grandfather, and another national holiday commemorating the national founder’s establishment of anti-Japanese guerrilla units.
Around April 26, satellite photography showed the dictator’s personal train stationed near the country’s eastern coastal city of Wonsan where he owns a villa.
On April 28, two experts on North Korean affairs and other sources said the leader could simply be keeping a low public profile to avoid potential exposure to coronavirus.
Although the U.S. and North Korea held its first-ever meeting between sitting leaders in 2017, no progress has been made in attaining a denuclearization agreement. In 2018, North Korea declared a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests. However, Kim said this past New Year’s Eve that he no longer felt bound by the moratorium.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House for comment. It hadn’t responded by the time of publication.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
The post North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Appears In Public, Ending Weeks Of Speculation About His Health appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post North Korean defector-turned-lawmaker ’99 percent’ sure Kim Jong Un is dead appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>A North Korean defector now serving as a lawmaker in the South claimed Friday that he is “99 percent” certain Kim Jong Un is dead.
Ji Seong-ho made the comment without citing his source, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. Rumors have swirled in recent weeks over Kim’s health after the dictator was last spotted in public April 11.
“I’ve wondered how long he could have endured after cardiovascular surgery. I’ve been informed that Kim died last weekend,” Ji told Yonhap.
IS KIM JONG UN AT A RESORT COMPOUND?
KIM JONG UN MAY BE AT NORTH KOREA RESORT COMPOUND AFTER SATELLITE IMAGES SPOT LUXURY BOATS
“It is not 100 percent certain, but I can say the possibility is 99 percent,” he added, speculating that North Korea, which “is believed to be grappling with a complicated succession issue,” may officially announce the news this weekend.
But recent satellite photos indicate Kim Jong Un might actually be hunkering down at a luxury coastal resort on the Hermit Kingdom’s northeast coast.
A key aide to the president of South Korea also insisted on Sunday that Kim, who is believed to be 36, was “alive and well.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“He has been staying in the Wonsan area since April 13,” Chung-in Moon, foreign policy adviser to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, told Fox News. “No suspicious movements have so far been detected.”
An intelligence source told Fox News Monday there have been suspicions that Kim has been unwell since April 15.
Speculation about Kim’s health has been running rampant since he missed an April 15 commemoration that celebrated the 108th birthday of his late grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. He was last seen on April 11.
Fox News’ Travis Fedschun contributed to this report.
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]]>The post North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un rumored to be dead appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>April 25, 2020 | 12: 36pm
Kim Jong Un is rumored to be dead, according to a Hong Kong broadcast network, while a Japanese magazine is reporting that North Korea’s rocket man is in a “vegetative state” after he underwent heart surgery earlier this month.
A vice director of HKSTV Hong Kong Satellite Television, a Beijing-backed broadcast network in Hong Kong, claimed that Kim was dead, citing a “very solid source.” Her post on the Chinese messaging app Weibo has been shared widely on social media, according to a report in the International Business Times.
Other unconfirmed reports, attributed to senior party sources in Beijing, said an operation to insert a stent went wrong because the surgeon’s hands were shaking so badly.
The post North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un rumored to be dead appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post North Korean Sympathizer Calls News on Kim’s Health ‘False’ appeared first on Virus Reports.
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The post North Korean Sympathizer Calls News on Kim’s Health ‘False’ appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The post Is North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gravely ill? Not true, says South Korea. appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>TOKYO — South Korea said Tuesday it was not true that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, was gravely ill, contradicting U.S. media reports, although his absence from recent public events has sparked speculation about his health and refocused attention on his eventual succession.
The nuclear-armed leader is only 36 years old, but he is clearly overweight and is frequently seen smoking. Still, when he failed to show up for an important celebration to mark his late grandfather’s birthday last week, most experts assessed that he was either taking precautions over the novel coronavirus pandemic or was simply breaking with precedent to show he was his own man.
On Monday night, another possible explanation surfaced: South Korean news website Daily NK reported that Kim was recovering at a mountain villa after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure last week. It cited a single unidentified source.
North Korean state media outlets were silent on the question: Kim’s health is a top-secret matter at the best of times.
But the report quickly snowballed after CNN cited a U.S. official “with direct knowledge” as saying that Washington was monitoring intelligence that Kim’s health was in “grave danger” after a surgery. The network later cited another official as saying concerns about Kim’s health were credible but that the severity was hard to assess.
While South Korea’s government soon denied the report, the events revived uncertainty about what might transpire in North Korea should Kim be incapacitated.
“We have nothing to confirm regarding recent media reports about the health problems of Chairman Kim Jong Un of North Korea, and no atypical movement inside North Korea has been detected,” Kang Min-seok, a spokesman for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said in a statement.
Another South Korean government official, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said the CNN report was “not true.”
“Our government understands that Kim Jong Un is currently staying in a region outside Pyongyang,” he said.
China’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Kim’s whereabouts, other than saying the two countries were good neighbors and that Beijing was ready to advance bilateral relations.
Kim’s health has long been a concern, but he also has the best medical care North Korea can muster, with the ability to call on expertise from Russia or China. Information about his health is extremely hard to verify in the secretive state.
Daily NK, which was set up by North Korean defectors, said Kim underwent surgery April 12 at a hospital in North Korea’s Hyangsan county — the same hospital where his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994.
But the website said Kim left the hospital to recover at one of his many residences. It also said some doctors remained in attendance but others had already returned to Pyongyang — suggesting that there was no immediate medical emergency.
Diplomats and officials in the region said there were no signs of unusual military activity at the border between North and South Korea, and North Korean embassies around the world appeared to be operating normally. Nonetheless, news of his father’s death in 2011 did not emerge for two days, and there was no indication initially that anything was amiss, experts said.
Daily NK said Kim has been suffering cardiovascular problems since August, which had been worsened by two visits to Mount Paektu, a sacred peak on North Korea’s border with China, late last year. It said Kim left Pyongyang for the hospital after presiding over a meeting of the Politburo of the ruling Workers’ Party on April 11.
Kim has not been seen in public since then.
On April 12, Pyongyang fired several short-range missiles. Kim is often shown in state media attending weapons launches, but the test was not reported in official organs. On April 15, he was not seen at unusually low-key celebrations to mark Kim Il Sung’s birthday.
On Sunday, North Korea denied that Kim had sent a letter to President Trump, after the U.S. leader claimed to have received a “nice note” from his counterpart in Pyongyang.
Experts said North Korea is unlikely to have issued such a statement — which would have required high-level approval — if Kim were gravely ill.
Speculation about the health of the North’s third-generation leader — including rumors he might be brain dead — surfaced in 2014 when he disappeared from public view for a few days. It later emerged that he had undergone ankle surgery.
But the developments underscored the uncertainties inherent in North Korea’s tightly controlled regime, where the leader’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, is increasingly emerging as a senior figure.
“Probably they don’t have a succession plan, because having a succession plan would be tantamount to plotting a conspiracy against the leader,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor of Korean studies at Kookmin University in Seoul.
Kim succeeded his father and grandfather as North Korea’s ruler, and while he is believed to have children, they would be very young and are not in the public eye. Retired basketball star Dennis Rodman met a daughter when he went to Pyongyang in 2013.
“It is a dynastic system, and the Achilles’ heel of any dynastic system is what do you do until the eldest son is ready to rule,” said John Delury, a historian and North Korea scholar at Yonsei University.
If Kim were to have serious health problems, Delury said, it would have profound consequences — but would not simply mean the regime would “cease to exist.”
Indeed, Kim has made efforts to rebuild the institutional apparatus of the ruling party and government since taking power.
“Even if Kim Jong Un were in critical condition or died, it wouldn’t lead to regime collapse,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute in South Korea. “Even in Kim Jong Un’s absence, Pyongyang’s ruling elite form a solid basis.”
Nor would a temporary illness affect his standing, Cheong said, any more than his absence for ankle surgery did in 2014.
Nevertheless, the reports have thrown a greater spotlight on Kim’s younger sister.
Kim Yo Jong caught attention when she represented her brother at the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. She now appears to be a key confidante of her brother; last month, she issued her first political statements in her own name.
Her official position, as an alternate member of the ruling Politburo, does not put her in the highest ranks of the regime. And as a young woman in a society that strongly favors male leaders, she would certainly not be a shoo-in, but she is probably better placed than anyone if something were to happen to her brother, experts said.
Kim reported from Seoul.
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]]>The post Two North Korean defectors take seats in South Korean parliament appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Two North Korean defectors of very different personal backgrounds have won seats in South Korea’s parliament, signaling potentially rising political influence in Seoul for individuals who’ve fled the North’s dictatorship.
Thae Yong-ho, a 58-year-old former North Korean elite who was once second-in-command at Pyongyang’s embassy in London and who defected in 2016, won a conservative party seat from Seoul’s affluent Gangnam district in Wednesday’s parliamentary elections.
Ji Seong-ho, a 38-year-old whom South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper described as a defector from an impoverished North Korean family, also took a conservative party seat through proportional representation — an appointment based on system-wide vote counts.
It is not unprecedented for a North Korean defector to enter South Korean parliament. Cho Myong-chul became the first back in 2012, although he also was appointed by proportional vote.
What is new about Wednesday’s developments is that two defectors of very different backgrounds took seats and that Mr. Thae became the first ever to be elected as a constituency lawmaker — meaning he was chosen directly by South Korean voters as their representative, rather than winning a so-called proportional representation seat.
Mr. Thae, Mr. Ji and Mr. Cho all embrace conservative political positions that advocate hard-line postures toward the North Korean dictatorship that they fled. South Korean liberals, including those of current President Moon Jae-in’s ruling Democratic Party, generally regard such with suspicion and broadly tend to push a more conciliatory posture advocating engagement with the regime in Pyongyang.
The Democratic Party and a satellite party it created to win its own proportional representative seats scored a resounding majority victory in Wednesday’s elections that the Associated Press reported had the highest turnout in nearly three decades, despite the coronavirus forcing social distancing at polling places.
Chosun Ilbo, meanwhile, reported that Mr. Thae ran using his new name Thae Gu-min, which means “saving people” in Chinese characters, and wore a bulletproof vest during his campaign for fear of a terror attack. He reportedly won 58.4 percent of the votes in Gangnam for the conservative United Future Party.
Mr. Ji was appointed to represent the Future Korea Party, a minor conservative proxy. Chosun described him as having once been an orphan in a mining town in North Korea’s northern Hamgyong Province who was 14 when he tried to steal coal in order to survive but was hit by a train and lost his hand and leg.
Having later escaped North Korea in 2006, he reportedly made his way to the South on foot and has since emerged as a major advocate in Seoul for North Korean human rights. Chosun noted that Mr. Ji gave a speech during President Trump’s 2018 State of the Union Address.
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