NORTH Korean state media today showed leader Kim Jong-un at a meeting of a top committee, issuing warnings about the coronavirus and a looming typhoon, following international speculation over his health.

Jong-un’s comments come amid conjecture over his condition after South Korea’s spy agency said he has delegated some authority to his sister, Kim Yo-jong, to relieve his “governance stress”.

A former aide to late South Korean president Kim Dae-jung had said on Facebook that he believed the North’s leader was in a coma, though with no evidence.

However, Jong-un presided over a meeting yesterday of a top committee of the ruling Workers’ Party, reported the official KCNA news agency, where he assessed “defects in the state emergency anti-epidemic work for checking the inroads of the malignant virus”.

The impoverished North – whose crumbling health system would struggle to cope with a major outbreak – has not confirmed a single case of Covid-19, the disease that has swept the globe since first emerging in neighbouring China late last year.

Pictures in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed Jong-un addressing the meeting, wearing a white suit, and in one image, apparently smoking a cigarette.

He addressed “some shortcomings” in the preventive efforts, and called for stronger measures to eliminate “defects”, said KCNA.

Last month, Pyongyang imposed a lockdown on the city of Kaesong, near the border with the South, claiming a defector who had returned was suspected of carrying the virus.

The restrictions were lifted earlier this month, and the infection was never confirmed.

The meeting also discussed emergency measures to prevent crop damage and casualties from Typhoon Bavi, which is forecast to hit the country this week.

There have been days of heavy rain across parts of North Korea, which is vulnerable to flooding, as many mountains and hills have long been stripped of vegetation, allowing water to flow downhill unchecked.

Jong-un laid out tasks for various departments, saying thoroughly preventing casualties and crop damage is “crucial”, said KCNA.

Several analysts have played down suggestions that his health is deteriorating, and Seoul’s intelligence agency has a mixed record with its past pronouncements on developments in the North.

Earlier this year, Jong-un was absent from public view for nearly three weeks, missing a key celebration in April for the birthday of his grandfather, the North’s founder – the most important day in the country’s political calendar – prompting widespread questions over his condition. – AFP, August 26, 2020.