Russia says North Korea eases Covid-19 lockdown in capital

SEOUL, South Korea - Russia's embassy in North Korea said the country has eased stringent epidemic controls in the capital, Pyongyang, that were placed during the past five days to slow the spread of respiratory illnesses.

North Korea has not officially acknowledged a lockdown in Pyongyang or a re-emergence of Covid -- 19 after leader Kim Jong Un declared a widely disputed victory over the coronaviruses in August, but the Russian Embassy's Facebook posts have provided rare glimpses into the secretive country's infectious disease controls.

The embassy posted a notice Monday issued by the Foreign Ministry of North Korea informing foreign diplomats that the special anti-epidemic period imposed in Pyongyang had been lifted as of Monday.

The embassy said last week that North Korean health authorities required diplomatic missions to keep their employees indoors and also measure their temperatures four times a day and report their results to a hospital in Pyongyang. It said the North Korean measures were in response to an increase in flu and other respiratory diseases, but it did not mention the spread of Covid 19 or restrictions on regular citizens.

Shortly before that post, NK News, a North Korea-focused news website, reported that health officials had imposed a five-day lockdown in Pyongyang in an effort to stem the spread of respiratory illnesses.

North Korean state media emphasised vigilance against a possible re-emergence of Covid 19 in recent weeks. The official Rodong Sinmun newspaper described the anti-virus campaign as the No. North Koreans must maintain a sense of high crisis on Monday as Covid 19 continues to spread in neighboring countries, as a priority in national affairs.

North Korea maintains it has had no confirmed Covid 19 cases since Aug. 10, when Kim used a major political conference to declare that the country's had eradicated the coronaviruses, just three months after the country acknowledged an omicron outbreak.

Kim claimed that the country's purported success against the virus would be recognized as a global health miracle, but experts believe that North Korea has manipulated disclosures on its outbreak to help him maintain absolute control.

From May to August, North Korea reported about 4.8 million fever cases across its population of 26 million but identified only a fraction of them as Covid-19. Experts say the country's official death toll of 74 is abnormally small, considering the country's lack of public health tools.

North Korea insists that rival South Korea is responsible for the Covid 19 outbreak, and that the virus was carried by anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets and other materials flown across the border by balloons launched by South Korean civilian activists. South Korea has dismissed such claims as unscientific and ridiculous.