It is about time that the government released the names of the MERS infected hospitals so that the public can make a choice on whether they want to go to that hospital or not:

South Korea identified all 24 hospitals affected by the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on Sunday, saying it wanted to ensure the public’s safety with transparent information.

Acting Prime Minister Choi Kyung-hwan disclosed the names of the hospitals at a press conference. The government had earlier identified Pyeongtaek St. Mary’s Hospital, in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, where the first MERS case was confirmed, and Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, one of whose doctors has been diagnosed with MERS and apparently contacted over 1,500 people.

The full list included five more hospitals in Pyeongtaek and five more in the nation’s capital.

“We’re disclosing the hospitals where patients have been diagnosed with MERS, so that we can ensure the people’s safety,” Choi said. “MERS has been spreading across these hospitals, and it forces us to impose strict control on them. Hospitals with confirmed MERS cases in the future will be identified as well.”

The government had been under fire for its refusal to share the names of affected hospitals. It’d reasoned that it didn’t want to generate unnecessary fear, though critics said the government had been doing just that by withholding the information.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I am assuming the Korean government was slow to give out this information for fear of causing overcrowding at other hospitals by people avoiding these hospitals.  Regardless until the MERS is under control it may be a good thing that the public avoids these hospitals.

How to gain a deeper understanding of Korea through its fictionhttp://t.co/JQeSuYrIjj pic.twitter.com/UW9bO3qQQz

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A U.S. soldier wears a military uniform with a patch of his unit during a ceremony at Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, just north of Seoul, on June 3, 2015, to mark the formation of a landmark South Korean-U.S. combined division. The division will consist of a brigade from the South Korean Army and the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, with each entity to carry out normal duties in its assigned area during peacetime. (Yonhap)

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A South Korean soldier wears a military uniform with a patch of his unit during a ceremony at Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, just north of Seoul, on June 3, 2015, to mark the formation of a landmark South Korean-U.S. combined division. The division will consist of a brigade from the South Korean Army and the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, with each entity to carry out normal duties in its assigned area during peacetime. (Yonhap)

South Korean authorities have identified the man who first brought MERS to Korea after traveling to the Middle East:

The World Health Organization warned that the MERS outbreak in South Korea is likely to grow, as the number of people under quarantine crept up to 1,369 on Wednesday.

The Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed five new cases — increasing the number of people with the disease to 35. These new cases were contracted within hospitals.

So far, three people have died after contracting the respiratory virus in South Korea, the country’s Health Ministry said Thursday, in the largest MERS outbreak outside Saudi Arabia.

The first case, concerning a man who returned to South Korea after traveling to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain, was reported on May 20. The person had not been ill during his travels, according to the World Health Organization.

More than 900 schools have shut to prevent the spread of the virus, according to South Korea’s education ministry.   [CNN]

You can read more at the link, but the Park Guen-hye government is taking a lot of criticism for not reacting better to the initial outbreak.  I don’t see how the government is to blame for a lack of a hospital not taking the first case seriously from the start.  It seems that once the virus spread the government formed a task force to begin to take measures to stop the spread, but the initial poor handling from the hospital is what is really to blame. However that is the way it goes in Korea where the President tends to get blamed for everything that goes wrong.  It will be interesting to see if the Korean left tries to capitalize on this politically?

Also of interest is that South Korea has closed over 900 schools while us military schools remain open.  It will be interesting to see how long the US military schools remain open if there is any more spread of the virus on Osan AB for example.

https://twitter.com/pearswick/status/606376778353876994

Gen. Kim Hyun-jip (R), the commander of the South Korean Army’s 3rd field battle forces, shakes hands with Maj. Gen. Theodore Martin, the commander of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, during a ceremony at Camp Red Cloud in Uijeongbu, just north of Seoul, on June 3, 2015, to mark the formation of a landmark South Korean-U.S. combined division. The division will consist of a brigade from the South Korean Army and the U.S. 2nd Infantry, with each entity to carry out normal duties in its assigned area during peacetime. (Yonhap)

It is pretty bad that a healthcare provider would violate a quarantine and put this many people at risk of contracting the MERS virus:

A medical doctor in Seoul came into contact with over 1,000 citizens while infected with the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the city government said Thursday, sparking concerns of the further spread of the deadly virus.

The doctor, who works for a large general hospital in the capital city, attended large-scale events on the weekend, even after he was ordered into quarantine last week for showing suspected symptoms, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

“On Saturday, the doctor attended the union meeting for the reconstruction of an apartment complex in Gaepo-dong, Seoul, which was attended by a total of 1,565 local people,” Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon said in an emergency briefing.

“He also attended two meetings of medical societies he is affiliated with on Saturday and Sunday, and visited several other public places,” he added.

On Monday, he was confirmed as testing positive for MERS and sent to a public facility for MERS patients. He contracted the virus after coming into contact with the country’s 14th MERS patient at the hospital where he works, according to the city officials.

Criticizing the central government for not sharing the relevant information with the municipal government and not doing enough to contain the virus, the mayor vowed “to devise the city’s own countermeasures to protect citizens.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the MERS virus has now killed 3 people in Korea and continues to spread.  I don’t know how the Korean medical community works, but it seems to me this should be something that should be grounds for removing his medical license.