Northern Korea blames ‘alien things’ near border with South Korea for COVID-19 outbreak

SEOUL: North Korea claimed on Friday (Jul 1) the country’s first COVID-19 outbreak began along with patients touching “alien things” near the edge with South Korea, apparently shifting fault to the neighbour for your wave of infections in the isolated nation.

Launching results of an investigation, the North ordered individuals to “vigilantly deal with noncitizen things coming by wind and other weather phenomena and balloons in the areas across the demarcation line plus borders, ” the official KCNA news company said.

The agency did not directly mention South Korea, but North Korean defectors and activists have for decades flown balloons from the South across the heavily prepared border, carrying booklets and humanitarian help.

South Korea’s unification ministry, managing inter-Korean affairs, said there was “no possibility” of the virus getting into the North via leaflets sent over the border.

According to KCNA, an 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old kindergartner who contacted the unidentified materials “in a hill around barracks plus residential quarters” within the eastern county associated with Kumgang in early April showed symptoms and later tested beneficial for the coronavirus.

The KCNA stated all other fever instances reported in the country till mid-April were due to other diseases, but it did not elaborate.

“It’s hard to believe North Korea’s claim, scientifically speaking, considering the fact that the possibility of the virus distributing through objects is pretty low, ” mentioned Yang Moo-jin, the professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

The US Facilities for Disease Manage and Prevention says the risk of people obtaining infected with COVID-19 through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects is generally considered reduced, though it is possible.

The North furthermore said the first 2 patients touched the unspecified objects within the eastern town in early April, but the first-time a defectors’ team is known to have sent balloons across the edge this year was in late April from the traditional western Gimpo region.