North Korea’s first admission of suspected case locks down city

State of emergency called in Kaesong after claim that ‘runaway’ returning from South may have Covid-19

NORTH Korea has declared a state of emergency and imposed lockdown on the city of Kaesong on the border with the South after a person there showed Covid-19 symptoms.

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, called it a “critical situation in which the vicious virus could be said to have entered the country”, KCNA, the state news agency, reported yesterday.

If the patient, who is now under strict quarantine, is confirmed to have been infected with the virus, he or she would be North Korea’s first official coronavirus case.

However, international medical experts remain sceptical about this claim due to the country’s long and porous border with China, where the pandemic began.

According to the strictly controlled state media narrative, the suspected case is a “runaway who went to the South three years ago” and who returned illegally on July 19.

KCNA said that respiratory secretion and blood tests had shown “uncertain” results and that people who had been in contact with the suspected patient and those who had been to Kaesong in the past five days have also been quarantined.

The lockdown was imposed on Friday afternoon, and an emergency meeting of the politburo – a committee of North Korea’s most senior leaders – was held on Saturday to tackle “the dangerous situation in Kaesong City that may lead to a deadly and destructive disaster”, the agency reported.

Kim said that he took “the pre-emptive measure of totally blocking Kaesong City, and isolating each district and region from the other”.

Earlier this year, North Korea introduced draconian measures, including an entry ban and the quarantine of hundreds of foreign diplomats and aid workers, to keep the coronavirus from wreaking havoc on its crumbling public health system and a population already weakened by malnutrition.

North Korea experts said Pyongyang’s explanation that the virus may have leaked in from the South could be an attempt to deflect attention away from a failure in leadership.

More than 33,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea over the past 20 years to escape poverty and human rights abuses.

However, it is highly unusual for North Korean refugees to return to their authoritarian homeland by crossing the mine-strewn border.

“The fact that the person in question crossed the North-south land border strengthens North Korea’s national

‘The fact the person crossed the border strengthens North Korea’s narrative of blaming the South’

narrative of blaming the South for its troubles,” Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics and North Korea expert at the University of Oxford, said.

“The regime has, so far, avoided overt mention of any presence of coronavirus in its territory.

“But it seems likely that there may be more cases of Covid-19, given the domestic actions taken to suppress the virus.

“What will be interesting to follow is how the regime may report future cases – suspected or actual – of coronavirus, following this initial event.”

South Korea’s military said yesterday that its own investigation into who crossed the border into North Korea was being narrowed down to a single, unidentified person, according to the Associated Press.

A military statement said that authorities were examining footage recorded by front-line surveillance equipment but it gave no further details about the reported incident.