Seoul: North Korea claims the country’s first COVID-19 outbreak began with patients touching “alien things” near the border with South Korea, apparently blaming the neighbor for the wave of infections in the isolated country.
Announcing the results of an investigation on Friday, the north ordered people to “treat with vigilance the alien things that come from the wind and other climatic phenomena and balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders.” said the official news agency KCNA.
A balloon with leaflets and a banner showing an image of South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk Yeol is released from the border town of Gimpo, South Korea, on April 25. Credit: Fighters For A Free North Korea / AP
The agency did not directly mention South Korea, but North Korean deserters and activists have flown for decades with balloons from the South across the heavily fortified border, carrying leaflets and humanitarian aid.
The South Korean Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said there was “no chance” that the virus would enter the North through pamphlets sent across the border.
According to KCNA, an 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old boy who came in contact with unidentified materials “on a hill around shacks and residential neighborhoods” in eastern Kumgang County in early April showed symptoms and then tested positive for coronavirus.
South Korean activists often throw balloons with leaflets denouncing the North Korean leader. Credit: AP
The KCNA said that all other cases of fever reported in the country until mid-April are due to other diseases, but did not go deeper.
“It’s hard to believe North Korea’s claim, scientifically speaking, given that the chance of the virus spreading through objects is quite low,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Korea University of Studies. from the North to Seoul.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the risk of people becoming infected with COVID through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects is generally considered low, although it is possible.