Following a week of uncertainty, NK News now understands that North Korean authorities have confirmed that a single Air Koryo flight will be allowed to go to Vladivostok on Friday, while also officially ending the most restrictive of quarantine measures for expatriate residents in Pyongyang.

Approximately 60 people are expected to leave on Friday’s flight – if and when Russian aviation authorities approve it – which will result in the embassy of Germany and both Swiss and French missions to the DPRK suspending all operations for the time being.

While it is unclear if DPRK authorities will allow missions in Pyongyang to use the return-leg flight to replenish supplies and cash balances, the state’s growing response to COVID-19 suggests Air Koryo will unlikely use any of its other March slots at Vladivostok airport.

But while a high-impact 30-day quarantine also ended as of March 1 – a measure which effectively saw foreign residents put under house arrest –  new rules have been imposed to restrict their interactions with local citizens, NK News has learned.

Though foreign diplomats and aid workers can now leave their residences and compound, their access to restaurants, shops, gyms and hotels throughout the city is fully prohibited.

And with North Korea’s Vice Minister of Public Health stating last week that the DPRK will maintain an effective ban on travel until a cure for the virus is found, one source in Pyongyang said they feared restrictions could now mean they remain stuck in the city “for several months”.

Though the DPRK continues to maintain that it remains free of COVID-19, in February both reports in the Seoul-based Daily NK and NK News sources suggested that the virus had already spread to some parts of the country.

Yet on Sunday ruling party daily the Rodong Sinmun reported that health services were currently holding around 3920 people under quarantine in South Phyongan Province and Kangwon Province.

The DPRK is “strengthening medical observation,” the Rodong reported, “finding visitors who came back from foreign travel, their contacts, and people with irregular symptoms.”

There are around 2420 people in South Phyongan Province and 1500 in Kangwon Province under this kind of monitoring, it added, in addition to a further 3000 in North Phyongan Province.

Edited by Oliver Hotham