North Korean leader
Kim Jong Un urged officials to maintain alertness against the coronavirus, warning that complacency risked “unimaginable and irretrievable crisis,” state media said Friday.
Despite the warning, Kim reaffirmed North Korea’s claim to not have had a single case of COVID-19, telling a ruling party meeting Thursday that the country has “thoroughly prevented the inroad of the malignant virus” despite the worldwide health crisis, the Korean Central News Agency said.
Outsiders widely doubt
North Korea escaped the pandemic entirely, given its poor health infrastructure and close trade and travel ties to
China, where the
Coronavirus emerged late last year.