North Korea reports 15 more suspected COVID-19 deaths

By HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea says it has confirmed 15 more deaths and hundreds of thousands of additional patients with fevers amid the country’s first COVID-19 outbreak. The additional deaths reported Sunday took the country’s fever-related fatalities to 42. After maintaining a widely disputed claim that it’s been coronavirus-free for more than two years, North Korea announced Thursday its first COVID-19 patients since the pandemic began. It has since said a fever has spread across the country “explosively” since late April but hasn’t disclosed exactly how many COVID-19 cases were found. The official Korean Central News Agency reported another 296,180 people with flu symptoms had been tallied, taking the reported total to 820,620.