In North Korea, the regime has just completely changed its discourse on the international health crisis, while managing to accuse its neighbor to the South. The country has reported a first "suspected" case of coronavirus and has placed itself in a state of "maximum emergency" to curb the scourge, the official KCNA agency announced on Sunday.
A case from the South according to the regime
This case concerns a person who "returned on July 19 after illegally crossing the demarcation line" which serves as a border with South Korea, according to KCNA. If confirmed, this would be the first officially identified case of Covid-19 in North Korea where the health system infrastructure is particularly inadequate to deal with such an epidemic.
The person suspected of carrying the virus is presented as "a fugitive who went to the South three years ago" and was found in the town of Kaesong, on the border with South Korea. Surprisingly, this person would have succeeded in crossing the heavily fortified border which divides the two countries. However, from South Korea, there has been no information about any attempt to fraudulently cross this border, marked among other things by mined areas, one of the most heavily guarded borders in the world. .
According to the KCNA agency, the person in question “was initially put under strict quarantine, and all the people (…) who came into contact with this person and those who went to this city during the last five days subject to a thorough investigation ”.
Kim Jong-un deplores the arrival of the "vicious virus"
To deal with the "dangerous situation (...) which could lead to a deadly and destructive catastrophe", the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called Saturday an emergency meeting of the political bureau to adopt an "emergency system maximum and issue a high-level alert "to contain the epidemic, the official agency said. Despite strict quarantine measures, "it looks like the vicious virus has entered the country," said Kim Jong-un.
For its part, South Korea reported an upsurge in cases on Saturday, registering its highest toll in nearly four months with 113 new cases, 86 of which involve people arriving from abroad. The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed nearly 640,000 lives worldwide and continues to grow. More than 280,000 new contaminations were identified for the single day of Friday.
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