What Is the Coronavirus Doing to North Korea?
Three generations of totalitarian misrule have left North Korea woefully incapable of containing, or even suppressing, a coronavirus epidemic. The same intelligent (and malevolent) design that has turned the country into the world’s most exquisitely oppressive police state has also inadvertently converted it into a prospective infection deathtrap.
North Korea’s notorious gulag camps and prisons, as well as its military barracks, are petri-dishes-in-waiting for communicable disease. The government’s worst-in-class transparency practices ensure that it will automatically censor information (bad news in particular) that might help identify the coronavirus and limit its spread. Longstanding economic failure means that much of the population is poorly nourished and vulnerable to infection.… Seguir leyendo »
