Kim Jong Un’s convening of an emergency politburo meeting on July 25 — where he discussed the possibility that COVID-19 has been introduced to the country by a returning defector — is the first official acknowledgment that the virus may now be present in North Korea.

Unconfirmed (as many aspects of the story are), a former DPRK resident infected with the virus is said to have successfully crossed the heavily guarded Military Demarcation Line (MDL) from the South Korean side on July 19. The individual is feared to have spread it through the nearby city of Kaesong – the report marks