Costly Lessons From the 2015 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus Outbreak in Korea

Lee, Sang-il

It is also worth asking to why the socioeconomic impact of the outbreak in Korea was so great. The numbers of infections and deaths (objective component of risk) from MERS-CoV were smaller than the numbers of those from tuberculosis or seasonal influenza. In spite of this fact, the public's perceived threat (subjective component of risk) caused by MERS was much more serious than those of other infectious diseases. The MERS epidemic was not a simple public health problem to Koreans at that time, but showed implications for the state of the overall economy and society beyond the health sector in Korea. One cause of this difference in perception was that the KCDC did not follow the outbreak communication guidelines proposed by the WHO. The guidelines emphasize the importance of winning the public's trust, making announcements as early as possible, providing information transparently, and promoting understanding among the civil society [6] . The failure in risk communication during this outbreak resulted in the public's overreaction to the outbreak [7, 8] . At the outbreak's peak, thousands of schools and kindergartens were temporarily closed and many public events were cancelled or suspended. The WHO recommended the Korean government to reopen schools, as there has been no linkage of MERS transmission with school attendance in Korea or elsewhere [5] . The number of foreign tourists decreased by 41% compared with the same month of the previous year. Korea lost US$10 billion, which is expected to cut 0.1% off the gross domestic product growth rate in 2015. This enormous social cost reflects the importance of risk communication during infectious disease outbreaks. The WHO also recommended that the Korean government should improve risk communication. Now the Korean government has a plan to establish a new unit in charge of risk communication and management within the KCDC.