DPRK locks down border city over suspected case

PYONGYANG－Kim Jong-un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, declared a state of emergency in Kaesong after the border city reported a suspected case of COVID-19, the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, reported on Sunday.

"There happened a critical situation in which the vicious virus could be said to have entered the country," Kim said on Saturday as he presided over an emergency enlarged meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party.

Kim said he took preemptive measures on Saturday to completely block Kaesong and isolate each district and region immediately after the case was reported.

The lockdown was declared on Friday afternoon in a country that has not reported any confirmed case of COVID-19.

KCNA said respiratory secretion and blood tests showed the person "is suspected to have been infected" with the virus. It said the suspected case and others who were in contact as well as those who have been to Kaesong in the past five days were placed under quarantine.

Describing its anti-virus efforts as a "matter of national existence", the DPRK earlier this year shut down nearly all cross-border traffic, banned foreign tourists and mobilized health workers to quarantine anyone with symptoms. However, the Kaesong lockdown is the first such known measure taken to stem the pandemic.

Given the dangerous situation in Kaesong city, Kim said, he had decided to shift from the state emergency anti-epidemic system to the maximum emergency system and issue a top-class alert.

All those who had contacted the person suspected of having the virus and those who had been to Kaesong in the past five days will be given medical examinations and put under quarantine, KCNA said.

The person suspected of having the virus, a defector who returned to Kaesong from the Republic of Korea on July 19 after illegally crossing the demarcation line, was put under strict quarantine as a primary step, the agency said.

KCNA said that Kim and other leaders were briefed on the results of an intensive investigation of a military unit responsible for the border crossing case and discussed administering "a severe punishment".

Kaesong, whose population is estimated to be 200,000, is just north of the heavily fortified land border with the Republic of Korea. It once hosted the Koreas' jointly run industrial complex, which remains stalled since 2016 amid nuclear tensions.

Agencies - Xinhua