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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he has a good idea how Kim Jong Un is doing and hopes he is fine, but would not elaborate.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he was aware of reports on Kim’s health and he was paying close attention to developments.

Train watching

North Korea had canceled some large events, and imposed a border lockdown and quarantine measures in an effort to prevent an outbreak of the coronavirus.

But if Kim Jong Un is hiding out due to fears surrounding COVID-19, it would “puncture a hole in the state media narrative of how this crisis has been perfectly managed,” said Chad O’Carroll, CEO of Korea Risk Group, which monitors North Korea.

“If he is merely trying to avoid infection, it should theoretically be very easy to release photos or videos of a healthy-looking Kim,” he said.

An authoritative source familiar with U.S. intelligence reporting said on Monday it was entirely possible Kim had disappeared from public view to avoid exposure to COVID-19 and the sighting of his presidential train in the coastal resort area of Wonsan did suggest he may be there or have been there recently.

Photo by Airbus Defence & Space and 38 North Pleiades CNES 2020, Distribution Airbus DS/Handout via REUTERS

But the source said that since there was no authoritative backing for such a conclusion, U.S. agencies were also still considering the possibility Kim might be ill, even seriously.

38 North, a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, said on Saturday that satellite images from last week showed a special train that was probably Kim’s at Wonsan, lending weight to reports he had been spending time in the resort area.

Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea in 2016, said that the train could be a deception tactic used by North Korea to mask Kim’s movements.

“North Korea always perceives that U.S. spy satellites are monitoring the North and is prepared for it,” he said in a post on Facebook.