The bungling of the South Korean government's initial response has already been under criticism. Among the 14 cases of the secondary contagion, seven infectees were not on the government's list of people required to be isolated and observed.
The seven infectees stayed at the same ward with the patient zero, but they were excluded from the isolation list for the reason that they didn't stay at the same hospital room.
A 71-year-old man, who had been hospitalized at the same ward with the patient zero, was confirmed positive on Thursday, and a broader range of testing was conducted. Since then, six more infection cases have been found.
The 44-year-old man who raised fears of the MERS spread in China was also excluded from the isolation list.
No tertiary infection case has been reported yet, but the man's non-sensical trip to China and his contacts with his co-workers and many unspecified people in South Korea for 11 days raised possibility for the tertiary contagion.
Given the incubation period of two weeks, the number of infectees is not likely to rise further from June 3 as the patient zero in South Korea was tested positive on May 20.
But the South Korean man infected with the MERS virus left for China on May 26, indicating a possibility that any tertiary infection case might happen in the next 10 days and it could cause an exponential increase of contagion.
South Korean Health Minister Moon Hyung-pyo vowed Sunday to make all-out efforts to prevent and control the tertiary contagion of the MERS, apologizing for the exclusion of many of the infectees from the isolation list.
The second hospital, where the patient zero was hospitalized and most of the patients were infected from the first patient, was forced to suspend operation. The health ministry planned to conduct an epidemiological survey from a zero base.
The ministry also planned to separately isolate high-risk suspects who had close contact with the already infected persons. They would be isolated and observed in the next 14 days.
Despite those measures, concerns remained as many people still distrust the government's response. Officials of private health groups complained about the initial response during their meeting with the health minister Sunday.
According to local media reports, the officials pointed out various issues, including a delayed result of MERS tests, the government's failure to share medical records of the infected persons with doctors and lack of information on those who had close contact with the MERS patients.
Some stressed the need for inflicting harsher punishment against suspected infectees who had close contact with the infected patients but failed to voluntarily report it to the health authorities.
Under the contagion prevention law, the suspected infectees and doctors who examined them are fined at most 3 million won (2,700 U. S. dollars) for the failure of voluntary reports. In practice, the doctors indicted for the failure of reports have recently been fined just 500,000 won, and the sentences were suspended.
