North Korea’s COVID-19 outbreak will not disrupt Kim Jong Un’s plans for a nuclear test, the State Department said Tuesday, denouncing the country’s continual weapons development as over a million suffer “fever” in the country.

The department’s spokesperson Ned Price delivered the assessment at a press conference on Tuesday.

“We have never seen the DPRK regime prioritize the humanitarian concerns of their own people over these destabilizing programs that pose a threat to peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and beyond,” Price said. “So I do not think there is any expectation of that.”

Noting that North Korea has