As many parts of the world are experiencing a new surge of COVID-19, North Korea is ramping up unverified claims that it’s the “cleanest place” on Earth and the only country to have completely blocked the virus.

After repeating similar boasts throughout the first half of this year, state media suddenly dropped the zero-cases claim in August, sticking to encouraging vigilance and reminding citizens that the virus poses a “fatal” threat to the nation.

But North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke the course of caution during his Oct. 10 military parade speech in front of a jam-packed, maskless crowd earlier this month, thanking citizens for being in “good health without any one of them having fallen victim to the malignant virus.”

But shortly after the speech, state media sent mixed messages over a mandatory mask-wearing policy and only quoted Kim’s assertion without offering new details or related slogans. 

Starting around mid-October, however, state media continued the overt zero-case claims by bragging that the world is looking at North Korea with “envy and shock” over its handling of the virus.

An Oct. 16 article published in the externally-focused, state-run DPRK Today promoted slogans that North Korea is “a uniquely clean land on the planet” and “a place free of infection from the virus.”

Then on Oct. 20, Korean Central Television (KCTV) aired a new program about Kim Jong Un’s virus response called “Thank You” (고맙습니다), which featured multiple new and striking propaganda slogans that once again referred to North Korea as the “cleanest” place on earth. 

The program started by highlighting Kim’s parade speech before showing the dark state of the pandemic abroad, playing brooding music underneath interviews taken from foreign media (video above). It then cuts to cheerful music with scenes of people walking through Pyongyang, and a narrator says that “it is only in this land that the people’s faces are overflowing with life and vigor.”

The narrator goes on to say that North Korea is “the only country in the world without a single person infected with the malignant virus.”

Later on in the program, text slogans appear purporting to represent the world “marveling” at North Korea. One boasts that “the Great Leader Kim Jong Un is the one and only great political virtuoso who created the cleanest place, the only country in the world which has not been infected with the novel coronavirus, and whom even the leaders of the superpowers could not match.”

Another reads that “the order to pre-emptively block the country’s borders is a decision that can only be made by the Great Leader Kim Jong Un, who is responsible for the fate of his people,” while a third says that “the existence of [our] clean country on Earth is a great global event.”

State media’s use of the word “clean” when discussing COVID-19 appears to have started in March 2020, when the DPRK foreign ministry promoted a Chinese scholar’s paper calling North Korea a “‘Clean Land’ Free of Infection.”

The top newspaper in the country, the Rodong Sinmun, expanded on the KCTV program and Kim Jong Un’s parade speech in an Oct. 28 article, demanding continued vigilance to stop the spread of the virus — despite the fact that the country has kept its borders closed since January.

“The world cannot help but be shocked” by Kim’s claims, it stated, adding that the virus is now ravaging other countries while the Workers’ Party of Korea protects North Korean citizens.

However, the article warned that “every second of every minute in today’s anti-epidemic battle — where even a moment’s complacency can result in a great catastrophe from which there is no return — is sharply linked to the fate of the nation and the people.”

North Korea’s paranoia over the virus was on full display last week, when state television urged people indoors due to fears that yellow dust blowing in from China could carry COVID-19. 

Meanwhile, state authorities disclosed last month that a total of only 3,374 COVID-19 tests — all negative — have been conducted domestically since January.

The lack of testing compared to other countries and North Korea’s refusal to allow others to independently review testing procedures means that it is still impossible to know whether or not any North Koreans have been infected.

Nevertheless, some outlets citing anonymous in-country sources have reported outbreaks with symptoms similar to COVID-19, and prominent U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials have asserted that the virus has made its way into North Korea.

Edited by Kelly Kasulis