pinball1970 said:
[...]
Passing on that knowledge from the wards is just as important as medicine, vaccines, PPE and experienced staff support if they let us and if that is an option. It should be, it is a humanitarian issue.
You might want to take a look at
this slideshow.
While nominally there's 13.2 hospital beds per 1k citizens, and 1 doc per 130-ish households, the reality is pretty bleak.
Some quotes:
"County Hospitals: Specialized wards for nutrition and tuberculosis"
"Among children, diarrhea and respiratory illness remain major causes of death, and for newborns low birth weight (est. 31%"
"Continuing widespread reports of death from starvation"
"Malnutrition, hepatitis and TB reported commonly [...] TB drug supply is intermittent, giving rise to drug resistant TB. General collapses of water and sanitation systems"
"Malnutrition a factor in 54% of <5 deaths"
"[Health workers] largely isolated from international trends and protocols"
"Medical students must spend 4-5 hours a day growing food"
"Quality of medical education is poor, almost no defectors can pass South Korean exams"
etc. etc.
It's a horrible tragedy, and yes, it should be a humanitarian issue. But that's already without CoViD. They do have good vaccination programmes, though.
But whatever aid you'd give would probably only reach party cadres and nuclear and rocket scientists... ...the general populace doesn't even get sufficient food.
A tragedy. Good that CoViD only hit that country in it's current, not-so-aggressive form.
Oh, and AFAIK, the beloved glorious Mr. Kim declined CoVax aid offers...