
SEOUL, South Korea — A large number of North Koreans including leader Kim Jong Un attended a funeral for a top official, state media reported Monday, as the country maintained the much-disputed claim that its suspected coronavirus outbreak is subsiding.
Since admitting earlier this month to an outbreak of the omicron variant, North Korea has only stated how many people have fevers daily, and has only identified a few of the cases as COVID-19. Its state media said Monday that 2.8 million people have fallen ill due to an unidentified fever but only 68 of them died since late April, an extremely low fatality rate if the illness is COVID-19 as suspected.