Since declaring victory over COVID-19, North Korea has been taking measures to return to normal life, including the lifting of mask mandates.
However, intense emergency quarantine measures continue in regions along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the southern part of the country and China-North Korea border.
Residents of North Korea’s border regions are complaining about their situation, which is diametrically opposed to that of residents of the country’s interior. They are complaining that the authorities’ quarantine policies differ region-to-region, with the “maximum emergency epidemic prevention system” still in effect in regions that border South Korea and China.
A Daily NK source in South Hwanghae Province said Monday that the State Emergency Anti-epidemic Command issued a command to emergency quarantine headquarters in coastal regions of South Hwanghae Province and other frontline parts of the province on Aug. 13 calling for the “impregnable defense” of the coast against South Korean “schemes” to insert the virus into the North.
The order said there is “no guarantee that frontline areas of Gangwon Province will be the only places to get enemy items into which the malicious virus has been implanted.”
Some residents of border regions of South Hwanghae Province are responding to the order by complaining that the “declaration of victory in quarantine efforts applied to interior regions only, with nothing applying to frontline regions,” and that authorities will “blame frontline regions bordering South Korea if there’s another COVID-19 outbreak.”
A Daily NK source in North Hamgyong Province, which borders China, also said that in provincial regions, emergency quarantine headquarters continue to operate as before despite the government’s declaration of victory.
“In particular, the State Emergency Anti-epidemic Command ordered that necessary measures be taken after reconsidering quarantine policies regarding regions along the border region in North Hamgyong Province,” he said.
The source said the State Emergency Anti-epidemic Command and its regional commands are not disbanding, explaining that they continue to operate normally, and regional commands in border and frontline regions have been ordered to come up with new quarantine measures.
“When they heard ‘victory in the quarantine war,’ people along the border in North Hamgyong Province thought the border closure over the past nearly three years and patrols by trigger-happy soldiers would ease a bit,” said the source. “People along the border rely on smuggling to make a living and are in the depths of suffering. They say they think it will be more than a decade before individuals will be able to approach the border again.”
In fact, North Korean public health and disease control officials in the border regions are saying another outbreak of COVID-19 is likely.
In discussions regarding the completely unvaccinated state of North Koreans, some doctors and disease control officials warn that the government should avoid just imposing intensive disease controls in the border areas and instead focus on the nationwide spread of the disease. They say that if authorities “aren’t careful in times such as these, the virus could spread and grow prevalent once again,” the source in South Hamgyong Province said.
In North Hamgyong Province, local doctors say the government worries most about public chaos that might last months or years due to an outbreak of a variant virus, and the resulting damage to the national economy. They argue that “99% of border residents have natural immunity as they’ve already had [the virus], so it won’t matter to them if the virus runs rampant again. However, people with no immunity will have a tough time,” Daily NK’s source in the province said.
Meanwhile, the Rodong Sinmun ran an article on page 4 of its Aug. 16 edition entitled, “Let’s More Thoroughly Ensure Conscious Consistency and Consistency of Action.”
The article said that although the country vanquished a virus “terrorizing all humanity” in the shortest time possible and achieved victory in the “quarantine war,” this did not mean the risk of the disease spreading had been completely eliminated, or that state emergency quarantine efforts had come to an end.
The paper put readers on guard, warning that about 10 subtypes more infectious and better able to evade immunity than the “stealth Omicron variant” – but little different in terms of severity or lethality – that hit North Korea have appeared around the world, with cases and deaths continuing to rise.
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