NORTH KOREA LOCKS DOWN BORDER CITY OVER FEARS OF INFECTION

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un placed the city of Kaesong near the border with South Korea under total lockdown after a person was found there with suspected COVID-19 symptoms, saying “the vicious virus” may have entered the country, state media reported Sunday.

If the person is officially declared a coronavirus patient, he or she would be North Korea’s first confirmed case. The North has steadfastly said it has had no cases of the virus, a claim questioned by outside experts.

The lockdown was declared Friday afternoon. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the suspected virus patient is a runaway who fled to South Korea three years ago before illegally crossing the border into the North early last week.

KCNA said respiratory secretion and blood tests showed the person “is suspected to have been infected” with the coronavirus. It said the person was placed under quarantine. People who had been in contact with the suspected patient and those who had been to Kaesong in the last five days were also quarantined.

Describing its virus-fighting efforts as a “matter of national existence,” North Korea earlier this year shut down nearly all cross-border traffic, banned foreign tourists and mobilized health workers to quarantine anyone with symptoms. But the Kaesong lockdown is the first such known measure taken in a North Korean city to stem the pandemic. Kaesong has an estimated population of 200,000.

Foreign experts say a coronavirus outbreak in North Korea could cause dire consequences because of its fragile public health care infrastructure and chronic lack of medical supplies.