Before acknowledging its first domestic COVID-19 cases, North Korea spent 2 1/2 years rejecting outside offers of vaccines and steadfastly claiming that its superior socialist system was protecting its 26 million people from “a malicious virus” that had killed millions around the world.
Its surprise admission this week has left many outsiders wondering just how bad things really are, and there's rising worry that it could cause a major humanitarian crisis in a country with one of the world's worst public medical infrastructures.
