North Korea has resumed some classes at high schools and universities in a “step by step” manner following an extended winter vacation aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19, the externally-focused state-run outlet Naenara reported Monday.

The report, along with a Weibo account run by Sogwang, another state-run outlet, also shared pictures of mask-clad students getting their temperatures checked at school entrances.

“Graduating class students of… universities and higher middle schools are attending lectures,” Naenara reported. “Regarding this, emergency quarantine commands, medical treatment and prevention institutions, and education institutions are more thoroughly coming up with relevant anti-epidemic measures.”

The report did not mention the precise date that the students went back to school. News of the return to class was also, notably, not featured in Tuesday’s party daily the Rodong Sinmun.

State media reported in February on “national measures” taken to minimize the risk of infection at schools, with those steps then “extended further” in mid-March.

North Korea has repeatedly claimed to have no cases of coronavirus within its territory.

The Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday reiterated that claim, while urging citizens to remain vigilant against the threat from COVID-19.

In an article titled “Never let down your guard,” the Rodong warned its readers against becoming “arrogant” and not taking the pandemic seriously.

Citizens, it said, should not see the damage caused by COVID-19 in other countries as something irrelevant to them “just because the malicious virus infectious disease did not enter our country.”

The global pandemic, it continued, is a “catastrophic disaster that… is threatening people’s lives around the clock, bringing severe damage to the overall society and economy.”

The threat from the virus “is impossible to be resolved in the short-term” since “smart prevention medicine and treatment has not been developed,” it argued.

“We never know when the infection disease will invade and attack,” the article said, warning against “loosen[ing] up even just a little, satisfied with the quarantine situation until now.”

Becoming lax in COVID-19 prevention, it continued, was “like an act of self-destruction, leaving doors wide-open to the transmission of the malicious virus.”

Edited by Oliver Hotham