MERS Virus and Anxiety

This following article from Welt was translated and paraphrased in Korean Media.

http://www.welt.de/videos/article142617224/Erster-Deutscher-nach-Infektion-gestorben.html

Article from Yonhap News (These guys are like the Korean version of Reuters.)
Yonhap News-first MERS victim in Germany

I learned about the fact that the first German victim of the virus died few weeks ago by my Korean friends. (Of course there are no relationship between the German victim and current Korean situation. The German victim is supposed to have been infected by the virus during his trip in Arab Emirates.) My friends in Korea are worried about me. Because in the case of my homeland, one man who caught the disease in Saudi Arabia carried the virus somehow throughout the country. But in Germany it seems many don’t even know about the death of the MERS-victim, and fortunately he seemed to have not carried the virus to the others.

The most important difference between here and my homeland which brought the different results seem to be population and area. German population density is 226/km2 and South Korea 499/km², more than double. And somehow the first patient of the MERS in South Korea and the following patients have traveled around the country and abroad, to Hong Kong and China, some unknowingly, some knowingly(!) But German patient seem to have stayed in the hospital in isolated ward.

In Korea we have this culture of sharing food and staying closer with family and friends. For example, we often eat from same bowl, especially soups. And we tend to sit closer to each other, to show intimacy. In South Korea the patients are mostly cared by family members and there are more patients in the ward, usually. The culture of my country is very warm and the distance between people are shorter than here. It is so sad that these characteristics seem to have worsened the matter at the beginning.

It troubles me to see that so many of my friends and loved ones are now suffering from the fear of possible infection of disease that has no cure, except self-healing. I get messages from them, within our Kakaotalk chatting rooms (Kakaotalk is the Korean What’s up), telling each other to take care of themselves. I feel helpless and guilty that I have to see people I love feeling anxious and insecure from far away in the detached place, as if watching some kind of movie.

I pray for the eternal peace of the victims of this disease. And I sincerely hope that the disease won’t be spread further and current patients would be cured.