Jubilee Post News & Views
Jubilee News Desk
North Korea that had been claiming its people were safe from the COVID-19 infection, has reported country’s first suspected case of coronavirus.
This has put the machinery on alert. State media said a person who defected to South Korea three years ago last week returned across the demarcation line with Covid-19 symptoms.
North Korean Kim Jong-un held an emergency meeting with top officials, imposing a lockdown in the border city of Kaesong. North Korea, a secretive state, had previously not reported any virus cases – but analysts said this was unlikely. Kim had called it a shining success as there were no cases in the country.
The state news agency reported, an emergency event happened in Kaesong city where a runaway who went to the south three years ago – a person who is suspected to have been infected with the vicious virus – returned on 19 July after illegally crossing the demarcation line.
At politburo meeting, Kim is said to have ordered a “maximum emergency system” to contain the virus. Kim also launched an investigation into how the person had managed to cross the heavily fortified border, KCNA added, warning those responsible that a severe punishment would be in place.
On Sunday, a South Korean military official said there were chances that an individual had illegally crossed into the North and that an investigation had been launched, according to Yonhap news agency.
North Korea had closed its borders and put thousands of people in isolation six months ago, as the virus swept across the globe.
There have been rumours of Covid-19 cases in North Korea for months, but the country’s tightly-controlled society and state media have made them impossible to confirm. So the announcement that there’s a suspected case in Kaesong comes as something of a surprise.
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