Authorities in China blame "south wind" from North Korea for corona cases

Created: 2022-06-08 2:44 p.m

By: Sven Hauberg

The "Friendship Bridge" (left) connects China to North Korea.

To the right is another bridge that was partially destroyed during the Korean War.

© Imaginechina-Tuchong/Imago

In Dandong on the Chinese-North Korean border, there are still new corona infections despite weeks of lockdown.

Now the authorities have identified the culprit: Wind from North Korea.

Munich/Dandong – Since the 1940s, the “Friendship Bridge” has linked Chinese Dandong with the city of Sinuiju in North Korea to the south.

However, what is currently blowing from there over the Yalu River to China is anything but friendly: the authorities in Dandong believe that the corona virus is being carried into their city with the wind from North Korea.

"In the case of southerly winds," according to a statement from the local health committee, "residents along the river" should not open their windows to protect themselves from the virus.

Dandong has around 2.2 million inhabitants and is located around 160 kilometers north of North Korea's capital Pyongyang in the Chinese province of Liaoning.

While the number of new corona infections is falling in most parts of China, it has increased in Liaoning in the past week - albeit at a comparatively low level.

Twelve new cases were reported on June 8, according to data from the National Health Commission.

China is pursuing a zero-Covid strategy and is already taking action against a few new infections with mass tests and lockdowns.

Dandong has also been sealed off since the end of April.

As reported by the Bloomberg news agency, citing authorities from Dandong, most of those infected in the city did not leave their housing complexes in the days before they were infected.

A few days ago, the state-run

said Wang Zijiang, an expert at the Liaoning Center for Disease Control and Prevention, that the infected people live in more than 40 different residential complexes.

In addition, no specific epidemiological link between these locations has been found.

China's border with North Korea has been closed for months

North Korea had not reported a single corona case for around two years, but is currently suffering from a massive wave of new infections.

As the state news agency KCNA announced on Wednesday (June 8), more than 54,000 new cases were reported within 24 hours.

Since the end of April, the number of infected has increased to more than 4.2 million.

North Korea has about 25 million inhabitants.

According to the authorities of the poor country, more than 100,000 people are receiving medical treatment.

The official government announcements usually only mention “fever” and not corona infections.

North Korea had largely isolated itself at the beginning of the pandemic and also closed the 1,300-kilometer border with China.

The regime of dictator Kim Jong-un has so far refused vaccine deliveries from abroad.

China: Is the virus really airborne?

Experts skeptical

However, it is extremely unlikely that the corona virus will actually spread from North Korea across the border to China and cause infection there.

According to experts, even at a distance of just 1.5 meters, infection in the fresh air is almost impossible.

"In the open air, there are almost no infections caused by aerosol particles," says a position paper by the Society for Aerosol Research.

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According to Peter Collignon, professor of infectious diseases at the Australian National University, it is more likely that cross-border commuters transmitted the virus – or that it was passed on within Dandong.

Just because Dandong has been under lockdown for more than a month doesn't mean there is no human contact, Collignon told Bloomberg.