North Korea attributes the Covid outbreak to "alien things" near its border with the South
Key Takeaways:
- The Ipho-ri district of Kumgang County in Kangwon Province sent many feverish travelers to the capital city in the middle of April, and their connections experienced a high increase in fever cases.
- Due to concerns for the safety of border towns, the activities were outlawed in 2020 by the administration of the previous president Moon Jae-in.
On Friday, North Korea allegedly shifted responsibility for the wave of infections that slammed the isolated nation on its neighbor by asserting that the country's first Covid epidemic was caused by patients handling "foreign stuff" close to the border with South Korea.
The North instructed its people to "vigilantly deal with alien items coming via wind and other climate phenomena including balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders" after announcing the findings of its probe.
A five-year-old kindergartener and an 18-year-old soldier who came into contact with the unknown materials "in a hill around barracks as well as residential quarters" in the eastern county of Kumgang in early April exhibited symptoms. They later tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the state-run media KCNA.
According to the study's findings, numerous people who traveled to the capital city in mid-April from the Ipho-ri district of Kumgang County in Kangwon Province were feverish, and their connections had a sharp rise in fever cases.
The KCNA said that all other fever cases documented in the nation up to mid-April were brought on by other illnesses, although it did not go into further detail.
The strongly fortified border has been breached by balloons carrying pamphlets and humanitarian aid by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea for decades.
The activities were prohibited in 2020 by the administration of former President Moon Jae-in due to safety concerns of border communities. Still, activists criticized the decision to suppress critics and whitewash Pyongyang amid efforts to strengthen cross-border relations.
After years of maintaining strong controls to stop the virus from entering the nation, North Korea has been dealing with its first outbreak of Covid infections. In May, the country declared a state of emergency.
As a result of a guy who had defected to the South in 2017 returning to the city with signs of COVID, Kim Jong Un, the leader of the North, proclaimed an emergency and ordered a three-week lockdown on Kaesong town, close to the inter-Korean border, in July 2020.
The North maintains that the Covid wave is beginning to slow down, but analysts think the statistics provided by the government-controlled media outlets may be exaggerated.
The number of individuals in North Korea who reported feverish symptoms increased by 4,570 on Friday, increasing the total since late April to 4.74 million.
Pyongyang has been reporting the number of fever patients each day without designating them as Covid patients due to an apparent scarcity of testing kits.