Why wouldn't it? No. Korea borders with China. ---- #North Korea’s Secret Coronavirus Crisis is Crazy Scary https://twitter.com/howroute/status/1226594374726930433 Kim Jong Un canceled a big parade with no real explanation just as the South Korean press reports coronavirus has hit North Korea hard and could explode there. SEOUL–North Korea’s not saying a word about deaths or illnesses from the coronavirus, but the disease reportedly has spread across the border from China and is taking a toll in a country with a dismal health care system and scant resources for fighting off the deadly bug. One sure sign of the regime’s fears is that it failed to stage a parade in central Pyongyang on Saturday, the 72nd anniversary of the founding of the country’s armed forces. Last year, Kim Jong Un himself presided over the procession that displayed the North’s latest missiles and other fearsome hardware along with goose-stepping soldiers in serried ranks. But reports have filtered out about Kim’s subjects falling prey to coronavirus despite the country’s decision to seal its 880-mile border with China, most of it along the Yalu River into the Yellow Sea to the west, and its 11-mile border with Russia where the Tumen River flows into the Pacific. Among the first to report fatalities in North Korea, the Seoul-based website Daily NK said five people had died in the critical northwestern city of Sinuiju, on the Yalu River across road and rail bridges from Dandong, which is the largest Chinese city in the region and a key point for commerce with North Korea despite sanctions. ......North Korea’s worries about an epidemic are all the more intense because of its shortage of basic medicine and equipment. As cases mount, authorities are working feverishly to contain a disease that, if unchecked, could undermine Kim’s grip over his 25 million people, most of whom live in poverty worsened by hunger. “Because health conditions and health care in North Korea are so bad,” said Bruce Bennett, long-time analyst at the Rand Corporation, “they cannot allow the replication process to develop without severe intervention”—that is, they have to take drastic steps to keep the virus from spreading fast. .....“I believe absolutely nothing of what I'm hearing from Pyongyang,” said Evans Revere, a former senior U.S. diplomat who specializes in North Korean issues. “It simply defies credibility that a country with a grossly inadequate public health infrastructure and a malnourished population, a country that depends on China for some 90 percent of its trade, and a country that had until recently opened itself up to a major influx of Chinese tourists in order to earn foreign exchange has avoided having a lot of victims,” said Revere. “The total closure of the border and other measures Pyongyang has taken reflect a real sense of emergency in the North about the threat.” In fact, he went on, “I can't help but think it may also reflect panic if the number of patients is growing.” Indeed, “the coronavirus arguably poses a unique threat to North Korea,” wrote Victor Cha and Marie DuMond of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in an article in Beyond Parallel, which is published by CSIS. “The regime’s relative isolation from the international community hinders the widespread penetration of many diseases from abroad,” they wrote, but “the porous nature of the border with China and frequent travel is a clear vector for the virus’ transmission.” Thus, “If there are reports of the virus inside of North Korea, we should expect that the virus would spread rapidly given the state’s inability to contain a pandemic.” By now, it may be too late for North Korea to stamp out all signs of the disease.