China's coronavirus epidemic has spread to nearly every country in Asia, with one little curious exception: North Korea.

Sure, a casual outside observer might note that North Korea is a tightly controlled communist country, but actually, it's got a pretty porous border with China and, being a totalitarian hellhole, a vigorous black market trade moving in and out for goods.

This might just mean it's got more coronavirus than it's letting on.

That's what the reports are now saying, starting with Australia's Daily Mercury:

The North Korean capital of Pyongyang was supposed to stage a massive military parade on Saturday to spark its 72nd anniversary celebrating the founding of the country's armed forces. Last year, the country's dictator Kim Jong-un presided over a grand procession displaying all of the hermit nation's new weapons, with an onslaught of soldiers marching in perfect step. This year, nothing like that took place. Local media reports, heavily controlled by Mr Kim and his ruling party, said the Workers' Party had been successful combating "severe and dangerous difficulties" but didn't mention the parade at all. That sparked suspicion the coronavirus, which originated in mainland China and has spread to almost 30 countries worldwide, had reached the hermit nation.

The Mercury goes on to report that bodies of the dead are being hidden.  N.K. Daily reports that the death started early, in January, meaning there's got to be a whole lot more going on now.  And based on the revolting conditions of the socialist hospitals, where health care is universal and free, apparently, a lot of people outside the capital are dying.  Their bodies are being hidden, cremated by the state and handed over to the relatives without explanation.  There's no free press, but there are cell phones with information from abroad, and the authorities are making arrests for having them with that information.

That's a regime running scared.

It's also a regime uniquely unable to fix the matter, based on its hostility to information — where the virus came from, how it spread, what kind of medicine is needed, where the shortages are, where the quarantines should be, how to help the sick...all of that information needed to conquer the virus is absent in totalitarian conditions, based on the government's fear of being toppled by angry locals.

Totalitarian hellholes are horrible places, and they are no match for plagues.  North Korea is now in denial and hiding information to an extent that makes China look transparent.

If you want an excellent graphic presentation (follow the bright red highlights on each map) showing the disease's spread to different countries over a timeline, using United Nations World Health Organization data, the Guardian has one.

There's just one weird exception to it — that white space where North Korea needs to be on this world map.  I circled the missing country in green pen here:

They're apparently affected very badly by this; they stand to keep the epidemic going as they pretend nothing is going on; and their refusal to admit a problem is a problem for the rest of the world, which stands to see the disease still spreading even as China strives to get it under control. 

It calls for some kind of intervention.  Maybe it's time for the Chicoms to get ugly with them.  Or for the Trump administration to put its foot down.

Hat tip: John McMahon

Image credit: Guardian, Twitter screen shot, with green indicator marks added.