Here's what we know about North Korea's COVID outbreak — and its ability to handle it

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/ [login to see] /north-korea-covid-outbreak
It's been more than two years since the pandemic began and in that time North Korea has claimed to have had zero COVID cases. But now the country's government has said it is experiencing its first outbreak, though it is still not labeling what people have as COVID.

On Wednesday, North Korean state media said more than 1.7 million people had experienced fevers and 62 people had died since late April — but those numbers are hard to confirm, according to journalist Jean Lee, who specialized on North Korea.