North Korea blames Covid-laden balloons sent from South for virus outbreak

Experts sceptical of claim, as state media urge citizens to watch out for ‘alien things coming by wind’

North Korea has blamed its Covid-19 outbreak on balloons sent over its border with the South by groups of defectors, in an apparent attempt to shift the blame onto its neighbour.

The official KCNA news agency said on Friday an 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old child who had touched “unidentified materials” in the eastern county of Kumgang in early April showed symptoms and later tested positive for Covid-19.

“A sharp increase of fever cases was witnessed among their contacts and that a group of fevered persons emerged in the area … for the first time,” it said.

However, the first time that groups of North Korean defectors are thought to have sent balloons across the border this year was in late April from the western Gimpo region.

KCNA warned citizens to “vigilantly deal with alien things coming by wind and other climate phenomena and balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders”.

While the report did not name South Korea, defector-activists there use balloons to send anti-regime leaflets and humanitarian aid across the countries’ heavily armed border.

In response, the South’s unification ministry said on Friday there was “no possibility” that the coronavirus had entered the North via balloons.

Experts were sceptical about Pyongyang’s assertion. “It is hard to believe North Korea’s claim, scientifically speaking, given that the possibility of the virus spreading through objects is quite low,” said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says the risk of people getting infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects is generally considered low, though it is not impossible.