Coronavirus: N Korea reports 88,500 more with Covid symptoms – disbelief over tiny death rate
- N Korea says about 3.3 million people sick with fevers, but only 69 have died; ‘scientifically, their figures can’t be accepted’, professor says
- Fatality rate of 0.002 per cent is something no other country, including world’s richest, achieved against a disease that has killed more than 6 million people
North Korea reported 88,520 more people showing fever symptoms, but no new deaths on Saturday amid the country’s first confirmed coronavirus outbreak, state media KCNA said.
According to its government, the country’s fight against Covid-19 has been impressive: About 3.3 million people have been reported sick with fevers, but only 69 have died.
If all are coronavirus cases, that’s a fatality rate of 0.002 per cent, something no other country, including the world’s richest, has achieved against a disease that has killed more than 6 million people.
The North’s claims, however, are being met with widespread doubt about two weeks after it acknowledged its first domestic Covid-19 outbreak. Experts say the impoverished North should have suffered far greater deaths than reported because there are very few vaccines, a sizeable number of undernourished people and a lack of critical care facilities and test kits to detect virus cases in large numbers.
North Korea’s secretiveness makes it unlikely outsiders can confirm the true scale of the outbreak. Some observers say North Korea is under-reporting fatalities to protect leader Kim Jong-un at all costs. There’s also a possibility it might have exaggerated the outbreak in a bid to bolster control of its 26 million people.
“Scientifically, their figures can’t be accepted,” said Lee Yo Han, a professor at Ajou University Graduate School of Public Health in South Korea, adding that the public data “were likely all controlled (by the authorities) and embedded with their political intentions.”