If the country is to be believed, North Korea is one of maybe a dozen nations not yet invaded by a deadly virus that has spread across the globe from remote islands in the South Pacific to outposts nestled high in the Pyrenees or the Greater Himalayas.
North Korea’s assertion would mean that despite sharing a nearly 900-mile border with China, one tens of thousands have crossed to escape or navigated as part of a robust smuggling trade, the isolated nation has managed to block a mercurial virus that has upended richer and more powerful countries.
The U.S., its longtime existential foe, has more than a quarter of a million confirmed cases of the coronavirus. China, its erstwhile backer and most important trading partner, has more than 80,000.
North Korea’s official coronavirus count is zero.
The lack of free media and scant independent monitoring make nearly impossible to vet the official account. Yet many outside observers and officials have questioned the country’s claim, alleging the regime of Kim Jong Un may be suppressing information or willfully blind to potential local outbreaks because it lacks the capacity to conduct widespread diagnostic testing…
Read the full piece in the Los Angeles Times here: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-04-04/north-koreas-official-coronavirus-count-zero-why-that-claim-is-hard-to-believe