North Korea’s Covid outbreak began with citizens touching “alien things” that had fallen near its South Korea border, state media in Pyongyang has claimed. Citizens were urged to be vigilant around objects that may have blown across the border from the South.
For years activists in the South have flown balloons across the border to send leaflets and humanitarian aid. In response, Seoul says there is “no possibility” Covid could have crossed the border in that way. According to North Korea’s state media, an official investigation found two people who became infected with Covid early on in the outbreak after coming into contact with unidentified materials near the South Korean border.
An 18-year-old soldier and five-year-old child tested positive for the virus in early April after finding the objects on a hill in Ipho-ri, it reported. Since then, state media said: “The malignant Covid-19 virus…has rapidly spread in the DPRK [North Korea].” As a result of the investigation, people in the country are instructed to “vigilantly deal with alien things coming by wind and other climate phenomena and balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders.”