North Korea’s official media reported that the first outbreak of the Corona virus began with infected people touching strange things near the border with South Korea, apparently blaming their neighbor for spreading the infection in the country.

When North Korea announced the results of its investigation, it ordered residents to “handle windblown strange objects and other meteorological phenomena and balloons in the area along the demarcation line and border with caution.”

The agency did not mention South Korea directly, but for decades, North Korean defectors and activists have sent balloons from South Korea across the heavily fortified border with leaflets and humanitarian aid.

South Korea’s unification ministry, which is in charge of inter-Korean affairs, has indicated that “the virus cannot enter North Korea through leaflets sent across the border.”

North Korea’s central news agency said, “We learned that in early April, a soldier named Kim, 18, and a child named Wei, 5, touched strange objects on a hill that surrounds the barracks and residential areas in Ifori.” that “they developed symptoms, and then tests showed that they were infected with the virus.”

Ifori is a district in Kumgang County on the east coast of the country, close to the border with South Korea.

And the agency considered: “The rest of the febrile infections in the country until mid-April were caused by other diseases, without giving details.”

And the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “the chance of contracting the Corona virus through contact with surfaces or materials contaminated with the virus is generally low, but possible.”

And the North Korean authorities announced: “Today, Friday, 4,570 cases of fever were reported, and the total number of infections since the end of April has reached 4.74 million.”