North Korea Lifts Sweeping Lockdown After One Day, Yonhap Says
North Korea Lifts Sweeping Lockdown After One Day, Yonhap Says
(Bloomberg) -- North Korea on Thursday lifted a temporary lockdown it had imposed a day earlier after reports from across the country of cases of fevers of unknown origins, Yonhap News Agency reported, citing multiple South Korean government officials.
The brief lockdown followed a military parade last week marking the anniversary of the founding of its army. Pyongyang also held festivities a few weeks ago for the 110th birth anniversary of state founder Kim Il Sung -- the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un -- where the country organized mass events despite maintaining strict Covid-19 border closures in place since early 2020.
It was unclear which parts of the country were under the daylong lockdown. There is speculation, the fever cases were caused by waterborne diseases such as typhoid because a coronavirus infection would have prompted more stringent curbs, according to Yonhap.
A report in South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper cited multiple people familiar with situation, saying the spike in fever cases had resulted in rumors of a soldier testing positive for Covid in the North’s Hamgyong province.
Last October, South Korean parliament’s intelligence committee was briefed by the country’s spy agency on the rampant spread of waterborne infectious diseases such as typhoid, a result of North Korea’s lack of clean drinking water infrastructure and shortages of medical supplies due to prolonged border closures.
While North Korea says it has no coronavirus cases -- a claim doubted by U.S. and Japanese officials -- it has taken drastic containment measures that have worsened the regime’s economic woes, including closing the border with its biggest trade partner, China.
Last week, China and North Korea closed down a rail freight service due to these measures, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. The rail link that passes through the Chinese border city of Dandong is Pyongyang’s main link to the world’s No. 2 economy.
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