Mysterious illness rocks North Korea and puts Pyongyang into full lockdown

A mysterious illness in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang has the city in a state of lockdown according to reporting from South Korea’s NK News.

Health officials in Pyongyang have ordered the city to lockdown for at least five days due to a rapidly spreading respiratory illness that was not identified according to a government notice obtained by NK News. 

“The new notice said illnesses currently spreading in the capital include the common cold but did not mention COVID-19,” wrote Chad O’Carroll and Colin Zwirko. 

“Residents are required to stay in their homes through the end of Sunday,” the NK News journalists continued. 

“It is unclear if other cities are also being placed under lockdown, and state media has yet to announce the new measures,” O’Carroll and Colin added. 

News of the lockdown in Pyongyang comes just one day after O’Carroll and Zwirko reported that the city’s residents were apparently stocking up on supplies according to an unidentified source inside the country. 

“The source reported that Pyongyang citizens are buying large amounts of food at stores,” O’Carroll and Zwirko noted, adding that there was “a notable buildup in traffic throughout the day."

It is impossible to say with certainty what respiratory illness is affecting the residents of Pyongyang. But there is some speculation that North Korea is wrestling with a new outbreak of Covid-19. 

North Korea only acknowledged its first Covid-19 infections in May 2022. By August, Kim Jong-Un declared victory over the virus and lifted most of the country’s pandemic-related major restrictions.

Judging the impact of the virus is difficult for outsiders since the North Korean government was never able to properly test its population, so most experts aren't sure how badly the country was affected by the pandemic. 

“North Korea has never confirmed how many people caught COVID,” wrote Reuter’s Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith, “apparently because it lacks the means to conduct widespread testing.”

“Instead,” Shin and Hyonhee noted, North Korea “reported daily numbers of patients with fever, a tally that rose to some 4.77 million.”

The new lockdown notice obtained by NK News did not mention Covid-19 specifically, but it did allude to illnesses like the common cold spreading in Pyongyang which could be a major clue for what's happening in the hermit kingdom. 

In addition to staying inside, O'Carroll and Zwirko said that residents of Pyongyang are also being asked to submit “temperature checks several times a day.” 

Go Myong-Hyun, a researcher at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies told the French news outlet AFP that the drop in temperature probably caused a resurgence of Covid in Pyongyang.

"COVID is disappearing and reappearing depending on the temperature, not just in North Korea but around the world," Go Myong-Hyun was quoted as saying.

"It was quite premature for North Korea to celebrate its victory over the virus... with the drop in temperature, COVID has re-emerged," Go continued, adding that "North Korea must have prepared for it to some extent, but it seems that the virus reappeared a little sooner than they thought."