North Korean swagger may conceal brewing virus disaster

In se days of infection and fear, a recent propaganda photo sums up im rth Korea wants to show world, as well as its people: Soldiers with black surgical masks surround leer Kim Jong Un, ensconced in a lear overcoat and sans mask as he oversees a defiant military drill.

As a new and frightening virus closes in around it, rth Korea presents itself as a fortress, tightening its borders as cres of health officials st a monumental disinfection and monitoring program.

That im of world-defying impregnability, however, may belie a brewing disaster.

rth Korea, which has what experts call a horrendous medical infrastructure in best of times, shares a porous, nearly 1,450-kilometer (900-mile) border with China, where disease originated and has since rapidly spre around world. rth's government has also long considered public reports on infectious disease — or, for that matter, anything that could hurt ruling elite — matters of state secrecy.

This has raised fears that rth Korea, which claims zero infections, may be vastly unprepared for a virus that is testing much more developed countries across globe — and even that infections could alrey be exploding within its borders.

“Unfortunately, international community has idea if coronavirus is spreing inside rth Korea,” said a recent report by Jessica Lee, an East Asia expert at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank in Washington. “ fact that we kw thing about level of infection or deaths within rth Korea is extremely problematic and, left unchanged, could have serious public health implications.”

rth Korean media, meanwhile, are filled with self-described examples of ultra-vigilance — as well as a sense of urgency.

Calling its anti-virus campaign a matter of “national existence,” rth has banned foreign tourists, delayed school year, quarantined hundreds of foreigners and thousands of locals who’ve traveled abro, shut down nearly all cross-border traffic with China, intensified screening at entry points, and mobilized tens of thousands of health workers to monitor residents and isolate those with symptoms.

A pare of media photographs show rth Korean doctors, scientists and health workers in masks, paper hats and protective clothing, discussing matters of science, or disinfecting public transportation, or planning ways to furr protect citizens.

" special cases must be allowed within state anti-epidemic system," Kim, emerging recently from a prolonged period out of public spotlight to oversee a politburo meeting on virus, said, according to state media. Officials must “seal off all channels and through which infectious disease may find its way.”

On Monday, Kim's military fired unidentified projectiles into sea, weapons tests apparently aimed, in part, at showing that all's well amid outside worries about an outbreak in rth.

Despite bravo, re are rising doubts that rth Korea has dodged virus.

Some rth Korea monitoring groups, which claim to have a network of sources inside nation, recently said that re are virus patients and deaths in rth Korea, a claim South Korean government couldn’t confirm.

“I’m 100% sure that rth Korea alrey has infected patients,” said Nam Sung-wook, a rth Korea expert at South Korea’s Korea University who served as president of Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank affiliated with South Korea’s main spy ncy.

If rth Korea h an outbreak similar to what’s happening in South Korea, world’s hardest-hit country aside from China, it would cause serious turmoil because of a chronic lack of medical supplies and medicine, Nam said.

“rth Korea would be helpless,” he said.

Some analysts believe that rth Korea’s strong moves to shut down border areas with China, its only major ally and aid benefactor, signal that virus has alrey spre into nation from China, which has h more than 80,000 cases.

re is usually heavy border traffic between two countries, and tens of thousands of rth Koreans were believed to be working in China before a U.N. order for Beijing to send m back home expired in December. It’s unkwn how many of m have returned home.

re have been growing outside calls for rth Korea to open up about what’s going on inside its borders.

U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in rth Korea, Tomás Ojea Quintana, urged rth Korea to “allow full and unimpeded access to medical experts and humanitarian actors, and relax restrictions on access to information. Furr isolation of country is t answer.”

Ojea Quintana said that many rth Koreans, especially in countryside, lack proper access to health services, water and sanitation, and that more than 43% of population is underurished.

United States also expressed worry about rth Korea's vulnerability to viral outbreak and said it was rey to support efforts by aid organizations to contain spre of illness in impoverished nation.

An epidemic in rth Korea, which experts say has a chronic lack of medical supplies, could furr shake an ecomy battered by U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile program. That, in turn, could quicken depletion of rth's foreign currency reserves by choking off income from tourism and smuggling.

Decreased tre with China could also dry up goods going to rth Korea’s informal private markets, which have emerged as a big part of national ecomy following collapse of state rationing system during a devastating famine in 1990s, experts say.

And country’s intensified anti-virus efforts could potentially hamper Kim's ability to mobilize his people for labor on major development and tourist projects, said Lim Soo-ho, an analyst from South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy think tank.

Despite a big ecomic hit to many rth Koreans, however, elite may survive a serious outbreak.

“rth Korea has a powerful control over its people, and that was how it maintained its leership when 2 to 3 million people died during ‘ arduous march period,’” Oh Gyeong-seob, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, said, referring to rth Korean euphemism for 1990s famine.

“Public dissatisfaction with Kim Jong Un will grow, but t at a level that will deal him a critical blow,” Oh predicted.