IC CHINA NORTH KOREA

Although North Korea has eased quarantine of foreigners and allowed them to leave the country on Monday, no Chinese diplomat or journalist plans to leave Pyongyang and has chosen to stay until the epidemic situation ends, the Global Times correspondent learned on Wednesday.  

Pyongyang only opened one flight to Vladivostok, Russia on Monday for foreigners to leave since they started quarantining foreigners in February, and the passengers' transport route with the rest of the world still remains cut off. Chinese reporters and diplomats in Pyongyang have no plans to leave the country, and the Chinese embassy and news stations remain open.

After Monday, the quarantine on foreigners in Pyongyang remained strict as foreigners in Pyongyang are still forbidden to go out of the diplomatic zone, and the country is paying more efforts to prevent the outbreak including increase the production of disinfectants and medical masks.

As of press time, no confirmed and suspected case of COVID-19 was reported in North Korea either by the North Korean government or the World Health Organization.  

The local authorities said on March 3 that the quarantine on foreigners had been removed, but they are not allowed to go out and have to stay in the diplomatic zone for foreign missions and journalists in Pyongyang, the Global Times correspondent in Pyongyang learned. 

Foreigners inside the zone can contact each other and are allowed to go to two major shopping malls and a guild hall for diplomats in the zone, and the international school in the zone remains closed. They  learn the information about the country outside the Pyongyang diplomatic zone through newspapers and TV.  

According to Rodong Sinmun on Wednesday, multiple factories located in the China-North Korea order that used to produce clothes are now producing medical masks to supply the epidemic prevention work, and the soap factories around Pyongyang are now producing disinfectants.

The report also said vehicles like ambulances and trucks are now standing by to make sure these materials can be transported to the regions in need at any time.

According to Rodong Sinmun on Saturday, 221 of 380 foreigners have been removed from medical observation. 

BBC reported that some embassies in North Korea have stopped operating, and that the British embassy would remain open. TASS reported on Monday that major Western countries including Germany and France have suspended operations of their embassies in Pyongyang. 

Since the quarantine has been eased, North Korean officials for epidemic prevention have stopped checking foreigners' temperature, but still have checkpoints at the entrance of the foreigners' apartments and all gates of the diplomatic zone, and all North Korean officials have protective suits, goggles and medical masks.   

No disinfection work is conducted in the diplomatic zone and no foreigner in the zone was found infected or suspected of infection. 


Newspaper headline: Chinese envoys stay in NK amid epidemic