North Korea says its COVID outbreak is now under control. But is it?

Before May 12, a number of specialists had serious reservations about North Korea's assertions that it did not have a single instance of COVID-19.

On that day, however, the nation modified its tale and admitted that it had its first epidemic of the disease, although it did not identify the number of cases. On the next day, it was announced that 350,000 persons had acquired fever symptoms, with May 12 accounting for 18,000 of those instances alone.

After a further two weeks, the Northern region has reported a grand total of 3.27 million "fever patients" as well as 69 fatalities. In addition to that, it asserts that ninety percent of the patients have made a complete recovery. In addition, there were no fatalities recorded in the Northern region for the third consecutive day on Thursday.

The claim made by Pyongyang that the statistics – and the government's assurance that the outbreak is now under control – are being called into question by experts.

Because of its limited testing capabilities, North Korea is unable to determine for certain whether or not the individuals it refers to as "fever sufferers" are infected with COVID-19. "They're flying blind, really," says Kee Park. This is because North Korea is only able to run a few hundred tests a day out of a population of more than 25 million people.