North Korea is maintaining it has no cases of the coronavirus outbreak, despite reports earlier this week that hundreds of soldiers have died with thousands more infected.
»MORE: Hundreds of North Korean soldiers dead from coronavirus: report
The North Korean regime has yet to confirm any coronavirus cases, according to Newsweek. South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported Monday 10,000 North Koreans have been placed in quarantine, some 40 percent of which have since been released.
A Monday report in North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said, "The infectious disease did not flow into our country yet."
About 200 North Korean soldiers have died and around 3,700 have been sickened and are under quarantine, according to Daily NK. A source inside North Korea's military confirmed the numbers to the news outlet.
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According to the report, the soldiers who had died were mainly stationed around the Sino-North Korean border in North Pyongan, Chagang, Ryanggang, and North Hamgyong.
The deaths and illnesses has reportedly caused an uproar in North Korea’s military establishment and has prompted leaders to take several measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
North Korea has not publicly confirmed a single case of the COVID-19 illness, but its state media have reported that thousands of people have been quarantined as part of strict prevention measures.
Meanwhile, a coronavirus cluster connected to a call center in one of the busiest areas of Seoul has raised alarms that South Korea’s outbreak — thought to have been waning — has gained a foothold in the more populated capital region.More than half of South Korea’s 51 million people live in the Seoul metropolitan area.
So far, 93 people have tested positive among the call center’s employees and their families, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said Wednesday in a briefing broadcast over YouTube. The number could grow as tests are being done on more than 550 co-workers who worked on other floors of the Korea Building in Seoul’s Guro district.
While most of the infected workers live in Seoul, some of them commute from nearby cities such as Incheon and Bucheon, raising concern about a broader spread through public transit.
Call center workers may be vulnerable because they work long hours in crowded and confined spaces, said Yoon Tae-ho, an official from South Korea’s health ministry.
Jung Eun-kyeong, director of South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said it would be difficult to track infections if they spread to buses and subways. She said it’s “most critical” that public transit operators vigorously sanitize handles, bars and anything passengers frequently touch with the threat of local transmissions growing.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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