Authorities in the North Korean capital Pyongyang have imposed a five-day lockdown due to an increase in cases of an unidentified respiratory illness.
According to NK News, a North Korean news outlet that monitors the country, the notice did not specifically mention COVID-19 but stated that city residents must remain inside their homes through Sunday night and must submit to daily temperature checks.
It further noted that on Tuesday it appeared that residents of Pyongyang were stockpiling goods in anticipation of more stringent measures.
It is still unknown whether new lockdowns had been implemented in other parts of the nation.
The first COVID-19 outbreak in North Korea was acknowledged last year, but by August, the virus had been declared eradicated.
The covert nation never disclosed the number of COVID cases, presumably due to a lack of resources for widespread testing.
Instead, it listed the daily total of patients with fever, which, out of a population of about 25 million, reached 4.77 million. But since July 29, there had been no such cases reported.
