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As a journalist, this editor braced herself for an expected flood of related stories and an everyday increase in the number of patients for weeks or months.
However, such concerns, tension and mental preparation have proven to be an over-reaction because the situation is quite well under control!
Not a single transmission has been reported since the first patient was confirmed on Sept. 8. The health authorities confirmed Tuesday that the patient was fully recovered, saying the situation seems virtually "over."
The patient, having suspicious symptoms when in Kuwait, headed straight to an emergency room upon arriving in Korea by taxi ― an action that minimized the number of people exposed to the virus.
Samsung Medical Center, which was said to be the hotbed of the MERS epidemic back in 2015 with 90 out of 186 patients contracting the disease there, was different this time as well.
As the patient talked about his symptoms and travel history to the Middle Eastern country, the hospital suspected possible MERS infection and kept him in isolation, preventing contact with other patients in the emergency room. It then reported the possible MERS case to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) and transferred the man to Seoul National University Hospital, a state-designated hospital for infectious diseases.
The public response was also different ― it improved.
More than 400 people were monitored by the health authorities as they came into contact with the confirmed patient, mostly passengers travelling on the same plane. Around 20 were in close contact with him, including flight attendants, passengers who sat around him, immigration officers, his wife and medical staffers.
All were told to stay at home until the up to two weeks incubation period for the virus passed, and officials from the regional health authorities contacted them every day to check on their condition.
Back in 2015, some people who were supposed to be quarantined did not follow the authorities' instructions and moved around, causing dozens of more people to be placed under quarantine.
At the time, the government did not disclose which hospitals the patients had visited ― a bad decision because this made hundreds of people keep visiting the places and thus coming into contact with the virus. This time, the government immediately let the public know which places the confirmed patient has visited, urging people to report to the authorities if they had visited the same places and showed MERS-like symptoms.
Such an improvement in dealing with MERS may have mainly came from awareness of the disease, as the country had to pay a lot to learn how to cope with the unfamiliar infection three years ago, as the social costs and sacrifices included 38 deaths, the closure of a dozen hospitals and thousands of schools, and the cancellation of major gatherings among others.
Of course everything was not perfect this time. Quarantine officials at the airport did not screen the patient although he was feeling sick after his trip to the Middle East, because the patient did not have a fever or respiratory symptoms at the time. Regarding what a suspected patient needs to do, some staffers at local hospitals and regional health authorities provided information at odds with the central government's, as reported in the Sept. 11 edition of The Korea Times.
In general, however, the responses were quite good. In this country where one of the most frequently-mentioned sentences in news stories is "the system has failed to prevent the incident from recurring despite past failures," it is very rare that past mistakes have been almost completely corrected.
Some may say it was "locking the barn door after the horse was stolen." But even if a horse is stolen, it is important to lock the door tightly so there will be no more stealing.
