LINK: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/24/north-korea-covid-vaccines-covax/

Ahn Kyung-su of the Seoul-based research center dprkhealth.org said Pyongyang’s “people-oriented” slogan was probably an effort to alleviate pandemic fatigue, and he noted that the restrictions remain in place partly because of the virus resurgence in China, which is being closely tracked in state media.

“North Korea showed signs of reopening earlier this year in January, when trains briefly ran across the Chinese border, but the virus spike in mainland China led North Korea back into a strict isolation,” he said.

LINK: https://n.news.naver.com/article/001/0013134651

안경수 한국 통일의료연구센터 센터장은 북한이 올 초 기차가 중국 국경을 잠시 넘어가는 등 국경 재개통의 신호를 보인 적이 있다면서도 “중국 본토의 바이러스 급증은 북한이 다시 엄격한 고립 속으로 되돌아가게 했다”고 말했다.

LINK: https://apnews.com/article/covid-business-health-seoul-south-korea-385cc1990a77121d770c5b090fa49042

Kang recently published a book based on his work titled “Picking up North Korean Trash on the Five West Sea Islands.” He said he’s now also started to scour eastern South Korean front-line beaches.

Other experts study the diversity of goods and packaging designs in North Korea through state media broadcasts and publications, but Kang’s trash collection allows a more thorough analysis, said Ahn Kyung-su, head of DPRKHEALTH.ORG, a website focusing on health issues in North Korea.

Kang Mi-Jin, another defector who runs a company analyzing North Korea’s economy, said that when she had South Koreans try new North Korean cookies and candies in blind taste tests, they thought they were South Korean. But Ahn, the website head, said the North Korean cookie he obtained in 2019 was “tasteless.”