Lockdown restrictions rolled out across the North Korean capital have ended, the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang said Monday. The North Korean government has not officially acknowledged a lockdown in the capital or a new outbreak of COVID after the country declared an extremely dubious victory over the coronavirus last year, but reports emerged last week that a five-day order of new restrictions had been imposed to thwart “rising” cases of respiratory illnesses. On Monday, the Russian Embassy in North Korea shared a notice on its Facebook page apparently from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry telling foreign diplomats that the “intensified anti-epidemic period” imposed last Wednesday had ended as of Monday.
