"North Korea closed its borders with China and Russia at the start of the pandemic, halted international air travel and imposed strict limits on domestic travel."

"It has told the World Health Organization it has not found a single case of Covid-19 after testing more than 30,000 people. That claim has been greeted with scepticism by the international community, with experts warning that the country’s threadbare health services are ill-equipped to deal with an outbreak.... Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said Kim’s comments 'indicate that health conditions are already deteriorating inside the country. Kim will likely find scapegoats for the incident, purging disloyal officials and blaming their ideological lapses. This may provide Pyongyang justification for demanding that citizens hunker down more, but it could also be political preparation for accepting vaccines from abroad."

From "North Korea Covid-19 outbreak fears after Kim Jong-un warns of ‘huge crisis’ in ‘antivirus fight’/Leader speaks of a grave incident and sacks officials for neglecting duties in fighting ‘global health crisis’" (The Guardian).