A high-ranking North Korean official traveled to the locked-down city of Kaesong on Friday to deliver virus relief aid on behalf of Kim Jong Un, state media reported Sunday, convening a large meeting of local residents to hear speeches praising the DPRK leader.

Kim reportedly ordered the aid to the city in a meeting in Pyongyang on Aug. 5. Kaesong came under full lockdown from both the outside and between its inner districts on Jul. 24, after a former North Korean defector "suspected" to be infected with COVID-19 returned across the inter-Korean border five days earlier.