A return to a Coronavirus Emergency Quarantine posture is underway in North Korea’s Ryanggang province as cases of a respiratory disease with symptoms similar to COVID-19 increase, and at least one more child has died, residents told Radio Free Asia.
RFA previously reported that at least five children in the central northern province died after developing symptoms, causing the local government to shut down schools and daycares for 10 days. Sources said that the 10 days have passed and only high schools have reopened.
Closing the schools did not stop the spread of the disease, and now authorities are restarting the province’s Coronavirus Emergency Quarantine Command, a system which the country relied on to get through the “maximum emergency” that started in May 2022, which it declared victory over in August of that year.
“These days, the authorities have reactivated the Coronavirus Emergency Quarantine Command,” a resident of the province told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The head of the neighborhood watch unit went from house to house and announced an inspection from the Coronavirus Emergency Quarantine Command.”
As part of the emergency procedures, doctors are visiting each house to measure residents’ temperatures twice a day, providing care for those with high fevers, he said.
Reports of deaths due to spreading disease are shocking to residents, causing anxiety, the resident said, referring to the case of a recently deceased 10-year-old elementary school student.
Some residents say the twice-daily temperature checks are an invasion of privacy, and believe that restarting the emergency is excessive and amounts to propaganda, because the government offers very little help to sick people, the source said.
‘Quarantine propaganda’
Another resident from the province, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said quarantine officials were active in the city of Hyesan since reactivating the emergency command, and they are carrying out what she termed as “quarantine propaganda.”
“Wouldn’t it be more effective to treat infected patients by giving them antibiotics rather than reactivating the Emergency Quarantine Command?” she said.
Antibiotics are however useless against COVID-19, which is a viral, not bacterial illness, though respiratory illnesses like mycoplasma pneumonia can be caused by bacteria.
North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper published hygiene information related to that disease on March 11, warning that the disease can be severe in frail people and children, even leading to death.
But such information is useless, according to the first resident.
“In reality, infected patients have no choice but to treat themselves,” he said. “If they don’t have money, they have no choice but to die.”
Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.