Anna Hartz
The COVID Cover-Up in North Korea
Back in 2020, most of the world locked down and scrambled for vaccines. News outlets reported daily updates on infection numbers, hospital beds, and masks.
But one country stayed quiet. North Korea claimed it had no COVID-19 cases at all. For more than two years, that was the official story.
A new report tells a very different version of events. It’s based on 100 interviews secretly collected inside North Korea in late 2023, according to Digi24.
A Weak Health System
The researchers behind the project say this is the first real look at what happened during the pandemic.
According to the report, the virus spread widely in North Korea as early as 2020. Most people said they or someone close to them got sick long before the government admitted to a single case.
Symptoms like fever and cough were common. But people were too afraid to say they had them.
One woman remembered a doctor warning her not to talk about her symptoms. “She would be taken,” he said.
Hospitals couldn’t help. The health system was already weak before the pandemic. There were no tests. There were no vaccines.
Most people turned to home remedies. Some used salt water, garlic, or fake medicine. One child died after taking the wrong drug. Others overdosed on pills bought on the black market.
Lies and Denial
The government shut down markets and travel. People couldn’t buy food or medicine.
Many went hungry. One soldier said, “If you didn’t have food at home, it was very difficult.” Over 80% of people in the report said they had struggled with hunger.
Masks were hard to find. Only a few said they got any from the government. Most made their own or reused old ones.
Schools and workplaces sometimes gave vaccines later in 2022, but only after the government admitted the virus was real.
The most painful part, many said, wasn’t just the illness. It was the lies. The government lied to the people.
The people lied to each other. Everyone was afraid. One person said, “They said they cared. But we were on our own.”