Even as the world battles coronavirus, another global mystery is keeping everyone on the tenterhooks, the whereabouts of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

The mystery

According to a Bloomberg report, the Day of the Sun, the April 15 holiday celebrating Kim Jong Un’s late grandfather, Kim Il Sung, has long been the most important date on North Korea’s political calendar. This year, the supreme leader failed to show.

First possibility

The first credible report that something was wrong with Kim was also among the least alarming. The Daily NK, a Seoul-based news outlet that gathers information from people inside North Korea, reported April 20 that Kim underwent a “cardiovascular surgical procedure” the previous week and was now mostly recovered.Hours after the Daily NK article, CNN provided a more worrying assessment of Kim’s health, reporting that the US was monitoring intelligence that suggested he was in “grave danger” after surgery. Bloomberg News separately reported that US officials were told that Kim was in critical condition, but were unsure of his current status.The Seoul-based JoongAng Daily newspaper reported Monday that the North Korean leader was in self-quarantine. The paper, citing an unidentified person in China, said that Kim was monitoring his health after one of his bodyguards was confirmed with the coronavirus infection.