South Korea Tracks Mobile Phones Over MERS Outbreak

An anonymous reader tips news that South Korea has stepped up its efforts to fight an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) after the number of known cases keeps increasing rapidly. World health officials are not recommending general travel restrictions, but members of the public are being advised not to do so. Nearly 2,000 schools have been closed, and 2,300 people are in quarantine. The South Korean government is also taking the unusual step of using mobile phones to track which citizens may have been in contact with confirmed MERS patients. The outbreak in South Korea has been traced back to a man who went to multiple medical centers in mid-May seeking treatment for his symptoms. The government is apologizing for its slow response to the situation, and hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

Comments

hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[TheRealQuestor]

How about hoping the human toll won't be too bad.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, what planet are you from? The only thing that matters is the bottom line.

Ebola in Dallas. Buy 3M.

MERS in South Korea. Buy US poultry futures.

ISIS on the border. Buy Syria Chemical Ltd.

[Seriously though, that line bothered me too.]

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[drinkypoo]

How about hoping the human toll won't be too bad.

When the economic system suffers, humans suffer, so it's a vicious cycle.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

A few people have died, but they were all elderly, and last I heard, the number was in the single digits. Much like with H1N1 and H1N5, those primarily at risk are the elderly, young children, and those with weakened or impaired immune systems. A generally healthy person, while feeling horribly sick, should have little chance of it being fatal.

I am living and working in Seoul, and much of the day to day life is pretty well normal, even with the school closures and people in quarantine. I have noticed zero change in the normal day-to-day life here, aside from a much larger presence of people wearing masks over their mouths.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[DigiShaman]

Not sure about elsewhere, but about 7 years ago or so, China's customs agents would scan everyone passing through Pudong Airport with a infra thermometer mounted on the ceiling. A reading is taken when you step on the designated waiting line. The number is recorded and off you go. Not sure what happens when the temp is high, but I'm guessing quarantined followed by questions.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[binarylarry]

I wonder what would happen if this "accidentally" spread to North Korea?

Would they be able to handle a serious disease outbreak?

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[Spy Handler]

I have noticed zero change in the normal day-to-day life here, aside from a much larger presence of people wearing masks over their mouths.

That's pretty silly, the mask thing. It's the people INFECTED with the virus who should be wearing masks, not healthy people trying to avoid the disease. (but then infected people should be quarantined in a hospital and not walking about on the street, so...)

What people should be doing instead is wearing thick, heavy gloves in public places. Almost all flu virus transmissions happen from your hand touching a virus-coated surface and then touching your face with your hand. Wearing gloves means that your skin won't come into contact with the virus, and the thick heavy nature of the gloves means you're not likely to forget the fact that you're wearing gloves and thus will avoid touching your face with them.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[Spy Handler]

Due to people there being less mobile and the gov't having police state-like control over the population, an outbreak in N. Korea will likely be at least as well-contained as in western nations or better.

Anyways if you wanted to kill N. Koreans by intentionally introducing a virus there (germ warfare), MERS is pretty silly. There are tons of more effective biological agents than that.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[EnempE]

Generally it is people who have a cold that wear the masks out of courtesy for the other travellers who might be nervous.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Concerning the mask thing its not that big of a request over their.

Wearing a mouth mask is fairly common in asia, it has to do with high paranoia of dust (in china anyway I know for sure). I people a deathly scared of dust, had a friend that taught english, asked one of his kids to clean the chalk board and the little girl got dressed up like a mini-hazmat worker. Asking people in that part of the world to wear a mask in public is a pretty "meh" thing.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the broader point underpinning the choice of words, and that is THIS:

Human beings can be replaced, but money, that is entirely another matter.

It's like in Dr. Strangelove, where the titular mad scientist says, of the fallout, (no pun intended,) of the impending nuclear conflagration, that America could work its way back to its present GDP in less than 20 years. It implies a lack of concern for little things like puny hoo-mons.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[AK Marc]

That's pretty silly, the mask thing. It's the people INFECTED with the virus who should be wearing masks, not healthy people trying to avoid the disease.

And what happens when you are incubating, possibly infectious, and develop a cough or sneeze? You let one rip in public, and get yourself checked out when you can? Or you wear a mask, to help reduce the transmission by an infected but asymptomatic person.

It also helps (even if trivially) with protecting the wearer.

It might not be a high-value protection, but it's low cost, and lowering the transmission rate in crowded areas, even a tiny amount, can have a huge effect on the spread of the disease.

Re:hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

What you actually care about is the number of "effective contacts" (interactions between two people that have the possibility of transmitting the virus). The less innately infective the virus, the less mobility is a good metric. It depends more on the type of contacts between infected and susceptible which will depend upon hygiene, food preparation practices, population density, etc.

This virus is said to not be so virulent, so the cell phone data won't be as useful. They'll get lots of false positives.

Re: hoping the economic damage won't be too bad.

[jouassou]

I wouldn't exactly call it "paranoia", as it's quite well-founded. My friend and I did a motorbike road trip through Vietnam about a year ago, and we didn't get the point of wearing those masks in public, so we just ignored the fact that all the locals were doing it. After a 2000 km trip over 11 days, I developed a tonsil infection, and my friend got a lung infection, so we both had to take antibiotics for the next two weeks. The doctor said that the reason was probably that we had been inhaling too much traffic dust; the dust creates lots of tiny tears in your throat and lungs, which leaves those parts of your body very vulnerable to infections. After that, I've been using a mask when driving through dry areas, and haven't gotten infected again so far :).

American officials were quoted as saying

[penguinoid]

"This is brilliant! We should have thought of this as an excuse to track everyone."

Re:American officials were quoted as saying

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans don't need excuses.

what about the phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

All of these news stories mention using mobile phones to track patients. None seem to explain how they intend to do this. For example: Can a patient leave his phone at home (as it is tracked) and wander about? What's to stop him/her from doing this? The article never explains even though mentioned in the headline.

that won't work

[slashmydots]

If they're using simple GPS, that's too many people to notify one at a time. It just won't work. They would be better off just tightening screening and long distance transportation hubs like normal.

This must be a new IAP

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I don't remember seeing any defenses against cell phone tracking in my upgrades section. If this keeps up, they're just going to keep bleeding DNA from my stores and Madagascar and Greenland get off scot-free *again*.

No matter - I'm just going to amp up both air and water-based transmission to knock out some other countries before they start revving up the cure. Where on my tech tree is the insanity symptom?

I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Are members of the public being advised not to recommend general travel restrictions or are they being advised not to not recommend general travel restrictions?