North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned against the “hasty” relaxation of anti-coronavirus measures, state media reported on Friday, indicating the country would keep its borders closed for the foreseeable future.
North Korea in late January closed its borders as the virus spread in neighboring China, and imposed tough restrictions that put thousands of its people into isolation.
Pyongyang insists it has not had a single case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus that has swept the world infecting more than 10.8 million people and killing more than 500,000.
Photo: AFP PHOTO / KCNA VIA KNS
Analysts have said that North Korea is unlikely to have avoided the contagion and that its weak health system could struggle to cope with a major outbreak.
Kim on Thursday told a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party that its efforts had been a “shining success,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
“We have thoroughly prevented the inroad of the malignant virus,” it cited him as saying, “despite the worldwide health crisis.”
Kim cautioned against any “self-complacence or relaxation,” calling for stricter anti-epidemic efforts while “reinfection and re-expansion of the malignant contagious disease persists in neighboring countries.”
South Korea is recording around 40 to 60 cases a day, while China last month saw a surge of infections in Beijing.
At the meeting, Kim “repeatedly warned that hasty relief of anti-epidemic measures will result in unimaginable and irretrievable crisis,” KCNA added.
The comments indicate that North Korea would maintain its self-imposed blockade, which has also hit trade with China, its key backer and aid provider.
Several embassies in Pyongyang have temporarily closed, as they have been unable to bring in supplies, money and staff.
Under the measures, any arrivals must spend 30 days in strict quarantine, and diplomats and analysts believe the border could remain closed for the rest of the year.
“It has no choice but to keep its border closed with China, it is something inevitable for the North,” said Hong Min, director of the North Korean division at the Korea Institute for National Unification.
“Its border closure with China may harm its economy, but the Pyongyang leadership seems to have determined preventing a coronavirus outbreak is more important in keeping control of the country,” Hong said.
More than 40 percent of North Korea’s 25 million people are considered food insecure.
A UN expert last month warned that the problem was worsening as a result of the country’s attempts to ward off an outbreak.
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