Fears of MERS spread, while the government bungles its response

Posted on : 2015-06-08 16:31 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Under public pressure, the government reversed its own police by disclosing information about hospitals
 due to public pressure
due to public pressure

Fears of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) are spreading in South Korea as the virus continues to infect more people by the day, aided by a sluggish response and confused policies emerging from the central government, which have reminded some of the aftermath of the Sewol ferry sinking.

As the post of Prime Minister remains vacant, the Blue House has yet to step up and serve as a control tower for the MERS response.

Meanwhile, the public is growing increasingly distrustful and weary after repeated examples of incompetence and lack of principle from quarantine authorities, including the administration’s decision - after just a few days - to bow to widespread fears and reverse its own policy of not revealing the names of hospitals with MERS patients.

On June 7, Deputy Economic Prime Minister and Minister of Strategy and Planning Choi Kyoung-hwan, who is acting as Prime Minister, held an emergency press conference to announce the names of hospitals associated with MERS infections. Yet even that process was riddled with confusion and suspected falsehoods.

In many respects, Choi’s decision to reveal information about the hospitals was forced by public opinion. The move appeared intended to avoid further souring of opinion from holding out after Seoul and other municipal governments had come out in favor of sharing the information. And with hospital information already being shared over the internet and social media, the administration had nothing to gain by continuing to keep it under wraps.

But the farcical way in which the announcement played out - with two delays, and an eventual revision to correct mistaken information about the hospitals - showed just how poorly thought through it was.

Choi also went out of his way at a briefing the same day to stress that the announcement was based on a decision by President Park Geun-hye.

“During the emergency joint government-civilian review meeting for the MERS response on June 3, the President said we should be transparent about providing information about the healthcare institutions where patients have been found,” Choi said.

But on the actual day Park presided over the meeting, Blue House Senior Secretary to the President for Policy Coordination Hyun Jung-taek refused to disclose information about the hospitals.

“The point is not whether to disclose the hospitals that are providing isolated accommodations for patients,” Hyun said after the meeting. “Twenty-five of the 30 [confirmed cases] occurred at one hospital, and that hospital has been sealed off.”

The change suggests that the announcement decision had nothing to do with orders from Park, but was intended to give her credit for something the public wanted at a time when ordinary citizens are growing increasingly distrustful of her.

The Blue House already faced heavy criticism for its lack of a control tower after last year’s Sewol ferry sinking. The issue now looks to be surfacing once again with the MERS response. In both cases, a refusal to acknowledge the bungling of the initial response resulted in a complacent approach to the later one. Facing a firestorm of criticism for its fumbled early MERS response on June 2, the Blue House opted to hold its first emergency review meeting to announce the establishment of an emergency response team. But the meeting itself was supervised not by Park, but by Hyun.

The following day, Park did preside over an emergency joint government-civilian review meeting to announce plans to form an integrated task force for the response. But afterwards, Minister of Health and Welfare Moon Hyung-pyo continued directing the situation as before.

On June 7, Choi announced plans to integrate all MERS response channels under the Ministry of Health and Welfare. It now remains unclear whether the administration’s MERS response is being supervised by the Blue House, the Prime Minister’s Office, or the Ministry of Health and Welfare - and what exactly the role of Park’s “integrated response task force” is. Park, who said during a National Medical Center visit on June 5 that local governments would “only create confusion trying to solve the problem themselves,” now likely finds herself facing charges that the lack of a clear control tower in the administration response is making the confusion even worse.

Choi, the one ostensibly in charge of the administration’s response, showed his own lack of concern when he left for the United Kingdom on official business on June 2, only to hurry back on the afternoon of June 6. In the meantime, the sole focus of the Ministry of Justice and other inspection agencies was on “stern punishment of those spreading false rumors.”

 June 7. (Yonhap News)
June 7. (Yonhap News)

By Seok Jin-hwan, Blue House correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

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