North Korea's COVID Negligence Was 'Abominable'

North Korea claimed it was blessed with a COVID-19 "miracle," losing only 74 lives during the pandemic without vaccines. But as might be expected in a country with highly controlled media, the truth wasn't so cheery, per the New York Times. Deaths and suffering were "widespread" in North Korea beginning in 2020, according to a new report by two US research institutes, though the country claimed it had zero cases until an outbreak two years later, shortly after which it celebrated a "brilliant victory" over the virus. The report issued Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the George W. Bush Institute notes many in the country died without proper health care or outside help, which North Korea repeatedly rejected.

The report was based on interviews with 100 people in the isolated country, who engaged in "casual, in-person conversations" with an outside intermediary in the second half of 2023, the Times reports. One woman said "there weren't enough coffins" to hold all of the bodies coming out of nursing homes in the winter of 2020. Nearly all of the respondents said they suspected they or others they knew had been infected with COVID. Almost 90 said they'd never been tested. Citizens "had virtually no access to vaccines, no antiviral medications, and minimal supply of personal protective equipment," per the Times.

"The government's negligence was nothing short of abominable," the report notes, claiming local health officials misreported deaths and diagnoses to fall in line with the government's claim that there were no cases. In turn, citizens wouldn't report falling ill because they received no help and would have had to submit to forced detention. "This resulted in a doubling of misinformation whereby the government and citizenry each lied to the other, creating further spread of the pandemic," the report finds. It also accuses the government of using the pandemic as political propaganda. The regime claimed South Korea spread COVID to North Korea and, years later, a third of interviewees still believe that. (More North Korea stories.)