North Korea jolted by huge and abrupt COVID outbreak

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

20220518 North Korea main

A teacher checks the temperature of a student in Pyongyang last year. North Korea had not acknowledged any COVID-19 cases until this month. © AP

HIROSHI MINEGISHI, Nikkei senior staff writer

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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