Nine months have passed since North Korea shut down its borders in Jan. 2020 to prevent the spread of COVID-19 — a swift move that came just when the world was starting to talk about the virus, and far before it ravaged millions of lives.

Now, the country has introduced a new “Emergency Quarantine Law” that hashes out different levels of disease-related red alerts and COVID-19 countermeasures, including detailed guidelines for handling patients who test “positive” for general infectious diseases.