After Kim Jong Un declared Covid “Victory,” North Korea lifted the mask mandate.

After leader Kim Jong Un declared “success” over COVID-19, official media reported that North Korea had lifted a mask requirement and eased other viral restrictions.

The declaration follows Pyongyang’s accusation of Seoul earlier this week for the COVID-19 outbreak in the North and the threat to “wipe out” the South Korean government if necessary.

Pyongyang’s official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the virus restrictions were loosened after “the public health crisis created in the country was completely defused, and its whole territory was turned into a clean one; free from the malignant virus in the shortest period.”

Just a few months after declaring its first cases in May, North Korea this week proclaimed a “shining victory” over Covid.

With the exception of border regions, social exclusion and other anti-virus measures were also suspended.

But masks were advised for those who had respiratory illness symptoms, and North Koreans were admonished to “stay watchful” against “strange things”—ostensibly referring to propaganda pamphlets from the South.

South Korean activists have been flying balloons with money and propaganda leaflets across the border for years in defiance of a prohibition that went into effect in 2021, which the North has long criticized.

Since late April, North Korea has reported only 74 fatalities out of roughly 4.8 million “fever” cases, with only a small portion of those cases being recognized as Covid, according to KCNA.

Experts have long disputed Pyongyang’s Covid figures and assurances that the outbreak has been contained, including the World Health Organization.