N. Korea's leader visits anti-virus center

STORY: Kim visited the anti-virus command center on Thursday (May 12) to check on the situation and responses after declaring a "gravest state of emergency" and ordering a national lockdown, KCNA said.

At least one person confirmed to have COVID has died in North Korea and hundreds of thousands have shown fever symptoms, state media said on Friday. About 187,800 people are being treated in isolation after a fever of unidentified origin has "explosively spread nationwide" since late April, the official KCNA news agency reported.

Experts said that given North Korea's limited testing capabilities, the numbers released so far probably represent a small fraction of the infections, which could lead to thousands of deaths in one of only two countries in the world without a COVID vaccination campaign.