ah, it is a testament to the quality of the waters. one of the many success stories from a bastion of biodiversity starts may 20th on dw, is it of the news? a shack coming up to date? north korea's expanded coverage emergency. more than a 1000000 people could be able to do to go over 19 or the country doesn't have vaccines, and health care is weak. how much was put the situation against. meanwhile, in china, shanghai said to target date for lift in all forward restrictions. many of it's 25, we give people have been your a strict lockdown for nearly 2 months. ah

. i'm british manager, welcome to d w. news asia. glad you could join us. north korean state media has reported at least 50 deaths and some 1000000 people down with fever days after acknowledging a coven 19 outbreak for the 1st time. for more than 2 years, the country had claimed it was covered free. it had also refused to accept vaccines from abroad for its population. experts for a looming catastrophe in the secret of state. and that have already been offers of help from neighbors, china and south korea. ah, the sleep media's anti virus program is full on it stresses help young young is working to curb it's major outbreak of the virus and as interviews with people who overcome covert or what the nation calls fever, trying to boost morale amid a nationwide lockdown. pamela amanda pedestal,

not often talk on his own. i started giving paracetamol on general cold medicine and antibiotics. every 5 hours to my daughter was gone a year long, and her fever was gone after 3 days. so, and you'd notice from bunger to do my doctor's in north korea promoting the use of paracetamol and traditional korean medicine, as covey treatments, but many cannot get them. leader kim jong own has now ordered the army to help distribute medicine. seeing health officials failed to stabilize supply, i've talked to the police here yet. it was that as him, but even the most timely medication delivery might still be insufficient for north korea's fight against cove it. most of his population is still on vaccinated. north korea previously refused vaccine offers from the kovacs distribution scheme. experts say the country faced the programs monitoring requirements would expose it

to international scrutiny. in addition to pyongyang major, our light beaching south korea is now also offering to help on an image i had repeatedly expressed my willingness to always open the door to humanitarian aid for north korea without political or military consideration or was if north korea response to south korea's offer to provide aid or we will give full support, including covered 19 vaccines and medicines, medical equipment, and the health personnel. since north korea acknowledge it's only con outbreak last week, doesn't have already died in a 1000000 others sickened by the corona, virus sagal, with no vaccines and little medication available. taking precautions has become the key in north korea's cove. it battle. the army and gentlemen are for more is dr. sargje in limb. she is a senior lecturer in north korean studies at the university of central lancashire doctor lim. when you speaking about north korea,

we are talking about an unvaccinated population, weak healthcare facilities, and the only chron variant. how serious could the situation get in north korea? every run? oh, is the same situation like i ison about a little bit of a speculation at the moment because we don't know how exactly the situation is like in north korea because for like last more than 2 years, there were no other foreigners in north korea who could are communicate to with our state of the country. however, from be a media i in the north korea, it looks like there's something going on. but on top of that, in terms of the data, it looks very serious, but at the same time is also a little bit doubtful whether those high number, the so to high number of the positive cases are true. or there's some kind of

a discrepancy in data, but it looks like there's something going on seriously in north korea are unlocked, owns have been announced to do you think that is the all new strategy? north korea has to fight this outbreak or will it be forced to seek help from abroad? from my point of view, north korea is more is following a chinese strategy. as we see, the shanghai in china imposed very harsh, looked out strategy. and north korea has been in the same pay on the same page like china, but it's quite a shameful. and because the people in north korea, they really suffer from these are looked down. and now you will be even harsher than are better. so because of that now, for example, unicef or a south korean government or the by doing a demonstration in the state, they try to offer the vaccination and medical services and hall, free or north korea regime could take them and open the door for the people. for

more than 2 years, as you were also saying earlier, the country kept insisting you didn't. i was in good corporate gears. i mean, it's a claim that no one outside of north korea believed help us understand the thinking her of kim jong on. i mean, surely he knew that denying the problem wouldn't make it go away. this that's true. and if we think about what happened before cove is 19 king germans resin had a little bit of a threat inside. in terms of the information influx, or even culture influx from outside, because through the us smuggling process, people could obtain the especially korean are popular culture. because our south in north korea's are share the same language. and many of the population, especially who could obtain those as eyes the card or dvds or yes, a base for a through their mobile phones so that they can watch south korean drama or listen

to the cable. then they even mimicked the way how south korean speak. and they try to follow the, the fissions of south koreans. and in that way on, the north korea regiment kind of was under threat because people now knew that our north korea, reggie is something wrong. but because of the coffee, the r 19, it was really good excuse for jim jones reads him to cause all these doors and he's smuggling and then it will access to the information. so that's why and with careers been locked down for such a long time. now on the day of at north korea confirmed its 1st quarter cases of last week. it also converted messiah tourists when wildfire messiah, when there is a greater human catastrophe, stirring you in the 1st. so that is very interesting point, because before in the past, when arkwin jones father was still alive,

are the north korea used to use the tactic called our nuke for food. so whenever de ar test tested of missiles, then you know, the, for example, the united states provided a food aid to come them down. so for north korea center, they haven't had any engagement. we, the us, after trump administration, and biden has been really indifferent in north korea. so this could be away, north korea sends out the signor's helos or engage with those. and the via, even though having this is changing because all of sudden north korea announced that the covalent agency changer. so this could be the sign from north korea regina that they may be willing to engage with outside of the word. but because of the saving face, the approach outside their site, so it's more like they send out dizziness outside of the word that they could reach out north korean, reach him but interesting believer there all the time being there or so jen lynn from the sun university of central lancashire thank you so much. thank you.

meanwhile in china or shanghai official says, the city is looking to resume normal life from the 1st of june, deputy mayor zone wings announcement is the clearest timetable so far of a return to normalcy in the city of 25000000, where many residents have been confined to their homes, compounds and neighborhoods for more than 6 weeks. official service, it is corporate outbreak is under control and that all districts would one have eliminated transmission among those not already important journalist far beyond crunch. my is based in be doing and drugs been are from there with more far beyond what is the situation right now in shanghai? are people still in lockdown? yeah, by all criteria. yes. i mean, the am, local government is arguing that am a fewer than 1000000 people are still locked to the apartments. but i will be very

cautious with those numbers. i know lot of cases and where residents are legally allowed to go outside. but actually the local neighbourhood committee, like the lowest m, m a governing a form here and bents, them from doing so. why? because and they're afraid that only 1 am positive case would basically locked the whole compound up again. and even if you can go outside, what you see is a city that is still far away from operating normal. i mean the i am checkpoints between each sub district. there i am deserted streets and, and yeah, shops close. so it's still a locked on. but what a very significant from the announcement today is that the vice mayor a gave really a concrete time table for the opening up and, and he said that, you know, there will be a gradual and orderly opening up am also until the 1st of june. i found actually one other date even more interesting. he said that until mid or latest m end of june, there will be a full reopening, basically,

a full new normal. and let's see how that plays out or problem other than people harris is impacting businesses. huge just to day and there were, there was a new set of data published and there was actually worse than we expected. so m r industry production down um roughly 3 percent a retail m roughly down 11 percent. and some of the indicators were even worse than dream. the covert a shock. m early 2020, for example, property sales. so we have a huge impact. and m a if you want to have any hope and we can see that in may, it's getting slightly better than our for a pro. but um, did this whole m? yeah, m o, the hope is basically only very fragile because the whole strategy of opening up and doesn't change. we keep a 0 covert here. and on the weekend the government has announced that m m. china

will not be hosting the asian football cup. that's an event that scheduled for july of 23. so you, i don't have much hope for a very soon opening up here in china and their water, the situation and be june where you are what we don't have a city wide lock down here and am, but still already some strict measures. for example, i'm working from home and restaurants are closer only open for delivery and already one district has em suspended public transport. and, and there are several $100000.00 people that also confined to m to the apartments. however, it is not as bad as it used to be in shanghai. so there still some hope that you know, the worst case scenario will not happen, but the situation is definitely tense. we leave with her for the time being with thank you so much for that update fabi on crutch for joining me from bridging on the covert situation. image china got it. thank you so much,

robin and that's it for today. there's more on the corona about a situation across asia, on our website, the dot dot com, forward slash asia, and as ever you can follow us on facebook and twitter as well. we're back tomorrow . at the same time, we'll see you then. i just got it all say what grade level is the end of the pandemic in site we show what it could look like

will return to normal and we visit those who are finding it difficult with successes in weekly coping. $900.00 special every thursday on d, w ah, china reports and other slate of lousy economic figures as it's locked downs continue to take a bite. unemployment is up, retail sales are down. aging struggles are adding to growing concerns of the likelihood of a global recession. also on the show, china's problems ad impetus to cooperation between the u and u. s. we'll look at a new agreement on semiconductors and talk to commissioner marguerite for stocker about where trade relations between the 2 blocks need to go. and the war and

ukraine is made in goods between europe and asia, even more difficult. look at a rail. ruth, it's still running for now. hello, welcome to the show. i've seen busy in berlin. retail sales in factory output in china slumped a 2 year lows in april, while unemployment climb to to your highs and who figures show the growing economic damage wrought by the countries. ongoing, coven 19 lockdown. st. retail sales and china falling more than 11 percent for the month. that's year on year. a drop last seen at the outbreak of the pandemic. industrial production, meanwhile, fell about 3 percent. unemployment reached more than 6 percent in urban areas. dozens of chinese cities remain in tight lockdown, including the world's largest port city, shanghai. or am i colleague for to and enjoys me in studio for more? clifford, how unexpected are expected were these numbers? well they're, they're certainly surprising and.