Correction (May 4, 2021 at 7:23 p.m. KST): This article has been updated to correctly state that articles from North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper have not included stories about the global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines as of April 19. A previous version of this article stated that North Korea had not mentioned the existence of COVID-19 vaccines, but one article in Aug. 2020 mentioned COVID-19 vaccine development in Russia.

North Korea has delivered bleak coverage of the global COVID-19 pandemic to its citizens, regularly showing footage of mass graves in foreign countries and despondent medical workers in places like