On 2020-02-19, the North Korean envoy to the UN claimed that North Korea has experienced no cases of COVID-19, the novel Coronavirus which appears to have emerged from Wuhan province in China late in 2019. The North Korean Government has, however, enacted a strict policy of quarantining persons entering the country found to be exhibiting signs of a fever. The World Health Organization (WHO) has also indicated that they do not have any evidence of an outbreak of COVID-19 in North Korea, though South Korean media has claimed that such an outbreak is indeed occurring, and news of it being repressed by the North Korean Government.

Regardless of whether the possible pandemic has reached North Korea already, such temperature-based quarantines are of indeterminate effectiveness. A growing body of evidence suggests that COVID-19 may be transmissible by asymptomatic carriers, rendering symptom-based quaratine measures effectively useless.

Thus, there are two questions of relevance to North Korea: first has or will COVID-19 reach its population in spite of the quarantine measures, and second, will the North Korean government affirm the breach? Alternately, will the WHO confirm a North Korean outbreak, regardless of whether the North Korean government announces it? Stated more succinctly,

Will the WHO or North Korean Government confirm any COVID-19 cases in North Korea by 2020-05-17?

This question resolves negatively if on 2020-05-17, no public announcements or press releases by either the WHO or North Korean government have been issued affirming that any cases of COVID-19 have been discovered in North Korea. This question retoactively resolves positively one hour before any such announcement is made or press release issued.