While Pyongyang claims to have achieved “miraculous success” in containing the virus, defectors, satellite data, and intelligence reports suggest that the pandemic brought severe consequences to ordinary North Koreans—effects that continue to be felt more than five years later.
Total Lockdown, Total Control
In January 2020, North Korea shut its borders with China—the country's largest trading partner and primary source of food, fuel, and medicine. What began as a public health measure quickly evolved into one of the harshest isolation campaigns in the world.
All international travel was suspended. Diplomats were expelled. Trade collapsed. Foreign humanitarian workers were forced out. The regime declared the country “virus-free” but began enforcing domestic restrictions that bordered on martial law.
“COVID-19 gave the regime the perfect excuse to increase control over every aspect of life,” says Choi Jin-woo, a North Korea analyst in Seoul. “It wasn’t just about stopping the virus—it was about stopping the outside world.”
Border Closures Cripple Trade
The most immediate impact was economic. With official and unofficial trade with China halted, markets across North Korea experienced drastic shortages of basic goods—cooking oil, flour, fuel, medicine, and soap became scarce. Prices skyrocketed, especially in provinces far from Pyongyang.
Smuggling, once tolerated as a necessary lifeline, was met with brutal punishment. Border guards were given shoot-on-sight orders. Families dependent on cross-border trade lost their incomes overnight.
“People were starving,” said a defector who escaped through China in 2023. “The government said it was protecting us, but it was really protecting itself.”
Food Insecurity Deepens
State rations, already inconsistent before the pandemic, collapsed in many regions. Agricultural output fell due to lack of fertilizer and fuel. UN agencies, unable to operate inside the country, have been warning of increasing food insecurity since 2021.
By 2022, there were widespread reports of citizens resorting to foraging for wild plants, and some even faced starvation in isolated areas.
Pyongyang elites were largely shielded from the shortages, with elite markets still receiving goods through unofficial channels. For the rest of the population, the pandemic became a period of extreme scarcity and suffering.
Increased Surveillance and Movement Restrictions
The government used the pandemic as justification for enhanced surveillance. Travel between provinces was severely restricted. Checkpoints proliferated. Anyone exhibiting symptoms could be quarantined indefinitely in makeshift facilities.
Citizens suspected of having foreign contact—or even foreign goods—faced questioning, fines, or detention. “Health inspections” became a tool for ideological enforcement.
Schools were closed sporadically, then reopened under strict control. Political meetings and loyalty sessions continued but with heightened monitoring. Mask-wearing and hand sanitizing became politicized acts, framed as expressions of loyalty to the Supreme Leader.
Public Health or Political Weapon?
Although Pyongyang finally acknowledged a COVID outbreak in 2022, it continued to downplay its extent, claiming swift eradication through “socialist medicine” and “unified will.” In reality, health services remained woefully under-resourced, and vaccines—when finally accepted through Chinese aid—were distributed only to high-ranking officials and military personnel.
“There is no public health system as we understand it,” says Dr. Lee Min-jae, a Korean health expert. “There’s state messaging and loyalty enforcement, not real care.”
Lasting Impact: A More Isolated, More Repressive State
COVID-19 deepened North Korea’s isolation from the world. It gave the regime new tools and new justifications for its already rigid control system. The population, already used to hardship, now faces a post-pandemic environment of even tighter surveillance, fewer resources, and growing fear.
For most North Koreans, the pandemic didn’t end—it simply became another layer in the system they must navigate to survive.
“The regime used COVID-19 to close every door—literal and psychological,” says a Seoul-based researcher. “And even now, many of those doors remain shut.”
As the world moves beyond the pandemic, North Korea appears more sealed than ever—its people left to endure the long shadow of a crisis they never truly had the power to confront.