Widespread disbelief over N. Korea's tiny COVID death rate

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — According to North Korea, its 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%, 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 sizable 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 underreporting 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.”

The most likely course is that North Korea soon proclaims victory over COVID-19, maybe during a June political meeting, with all credit given to Kim’s leadership. The 38-year-old ruler is desperate, observers say, to win bigger public support as he deals with severe economic difficulties caused by border shutdowns, U.N. sanctions and his own mismanagement.

“Diverse public complaints have accumulated, so it’s time to (strengthen) internal...