With the winter season approaching, North Korea recently issued an order to further bolster emergency quarantine efforts to prevent infectious diseases.
A source in South Pyongan Province told Daily NK on Friday that the Central Emergency Anti-Epidemic Headquarters warned that with the seasons changing, a new, more virulent virus could arise, ordering that emergency quarantine efforts be further strengthened “in several ways to manage this ahead of time.”
In particular, North Korean authorities in the province have taken serious issue with how earthworms infest the waterworks connected to residential housing in South Pyongan Province, ordering that strong measures be taken to resolve this issue.
In South Pyongan Province, it is commonplace for earthworms and leeches to emerge from home faucets and cohabitate in water tanks.
Cities and counties in the province have been ordered to carry out their own construction work in each district to reduce pollution in the water supply, even if this means digging up water pipes for repairs or, when even this would not solve the problem, laying completely new pipes.
Relatedly, the emergency quarantine headquarters of South Pyongan Province has reportedly notified localities that it would selectively go around cities and counties for three days in late October to inspect the condition of local waterworks, communal spigots and wells connected to underground pipes.
HOMECRAFTERS ENCOURAGED TO MAKE MASKS TO OFFSET SHORTAGES
The source said the Central Emergency Anti-Epidemic Headquarters complained that although the state emphasizes emergency quarantine efforts every day, “people don’t wear masks on a daily basis, and that people are abandoning mask wearing.”
In particular, North Korean authorities reportedly said that scientific numbers demonstrate that detection rates for the flu virus have greatly fallen nationwide thanks to mask wearing, and stressed that officials must elevate public awareness of quarantine efforts by sharing this information.
Meanwhile, the authorities in South Pyongan Province have reportedly ordered that homecrafters be urged to produce masks to make up for shortages of state-produced masks, while intensifying restrictions to prevent marketplace merchants from selling state-produced masks.
“Specifically, people’s committees and market management offices were ordered to restrict the goods of merchants who sell state-produced masks, and to sort out the quality of homemade and state-produced masks in markets, confiscating all the goods of merchants who sell state-produced masks,” said the source.
The source added that people’s committees and market management offices were ordered to “discuss measures to manage and supervise mask supplies together with emergency quarantine headquarters of all levels to ensure a stable mask supply.”
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