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North Korea jolted by huge and abrupt COVID outbreak

Infection wave could threaten Kim Jong Un's ill-prepared government

TOKYO -- North Korea has been hit by a massive and apparently sudden onslaught of the coronavirus, with a swelling wave of infections threatening to overwhelm the secluded country's ill-equipped health care system.

The nation on May 8 announced what it said were its first confirmed COVID-19 cases. The galloping spread of the virus since then has severely jolted leader Kim Jong Un's autocratic government.

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