In North Korea, the number of people suspected to be infected with the corona virus has skyrocketed. Authorities now claim they have figured out how the pandemic spread to the country in the first place.
The corona pandemic has also fully gripped North Korea. Although nobody from the outside can see the health data of the isolated country, since Pyongyang first reported hundreds of thousands of “fever cases” in mid-May – the country has too little test capacity and therefore speaks of suspected Covid above all of fever symptoms – according to the authorities, the number has now increased grown to more than 4.5 million.
In May, ruler Kim Jong Un reprimanded the officials of the state apparatus for the rapid spread of the virus: The “non-positive attitude, the negligence and inaction of leading state officials” are contributing to the fact that the state cannot cope with the crisis, he complained according to the state news agency KCNA at a meeting of the ruling party’s Politburo.
North Korea calls for “vigilant handling” of “foreign things”
And now the North Korean health authorities also believe they have found out how the pandemic was able to spread to North Korea in the first place: the corona outbreak is said to have started with people who came into contact with balloons from South Korea.
The Center for Disease Prevention has discovered infection clusters in the city of Ipho near the southeastern border and some residents have traveled to Pyongyang with feverish symptoms, North Korean state media reported. An 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old kindergarten child had come into contact with “strange things” in the city in early April and later tested positive for the Omicron variant.
In a so-called “emergency instruction”, the epidemic prevention center instructed officials along the border “to be vigilant in dealing with strange things that come from the wind and other climatic phenomena, and with balloons” and to trace their origin closely. The center also emphasized that anyone who finds “strange things” must notify the authorities immediately so that they can be removed.
The reports didn’t elaborate on what the “strange things” were, according to the AP. However, the reference is likely to relate to the activities of North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea. For years, they have been flying balloons across the border to distribute hundreds of thousands of propaganda leaflets criticizing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, much to the annoyance of the regime in Pyongyang. Since the government in Seoul criminalized these campaigns in March 2021, however, the balloon actions have become much rarer.
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Source: Stern
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