“If there is an outbreak, the North Korean system will be helpless,” said Choi Jung-hun, a former North Korean doctor who defected to South Korea in 2012. Pyongyang has previously resorted to similar methods of national self-quarantine in the face of perceived biological threats. And it clamped down on travel for six months during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002 and 2003, which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong. The movement restrictions imposed by Pyongyang were “very abnormal,” he said, and that meant international organizations present in North Korea had no way of establishing facts for themselves. “These measures reflect the realistic assessment by the government of its fragile health system.”AFP

Source: Manila Times February 21, 2020 16:15 UTC