BOM BOM BOM BOM BOM BOM BOM BOM
For this week’s video I’m going to be talking about the MERS outbreak in Korea
and I’m gonna try to offer a little bit of perspective
for those of you that are coming to Korea
and also for some of you that are cancelling your trips altogether
Notice however that I’m doing this video by myself
and not with Martina because she’s sick
Not with MERS though!
But with DENGUE FEVER!
DENGUE!!!!!
Dang…how do you pronounce dengue.
Is it dengwoowee?
How is it?
[Rose] It’s DENGEE
Not Dengayyyy?
Like
For those of you who don’t know what MERS is it’s Middle East Respiratory Syndrome
And in other words without getting into all the details
It’s pretty much a really nasty flu
What’s freaking people out most about MERS
is that there’s a 40% Mortality Rate for reported cases of MERS
That coupled with the idea that South Korea is going through a MERS outbreak right now
makes people think with this oversimplified generalization
that if you come to Korea you have a 40% chance of dying
and that’s not true
So let me try to balance this out for some of you that are terrified
There are three levels of danger for travellers
The worst is Level 3 which tells you not to travel unless absolutely necessary
The next level is 2 which tells you to exercise enhanced precautions
And then there’s level #1 which is pretty much nothing
In which you exercise your regular precautions as you do everywhere else
South Korea is rated at #1
The second thing to consider is how MERS is being transmitted
and I think that this is really important to understand
because some people are getting the impression
that as soon as you land in Korea
there’s this giant MERS cloud of death
that’s just gonna pick you off one by one
and people will just die in the streets like that
which is not the case
First off, MERS is not an airborne virus
It is transmitted due to contact through prolonged environmental presence
Meaning: you have to be in very close contact with people who have MERS
in order to get MERS yourself.
You’re not going to get it just by walking around the streets of Seoul
So why is everybody wearing masks around Korea now?
Well, it makes them feel like they’re doing something when they’re actually not.
Scientists, and even the mask manufacturers themselves
are telling people that these masks don’t provide the level of protection
that they think that they are getting.
This however doesn’t mean that the mask companies
aren’t profiteering off of this like hell.
From May 23rd to May 31st mask sales increased by 709%
Merry Christmas to you mask companies.
You’re making bank.
Here are some really important numbers for you to know
about the people that are getting MERS
Out of the 172 MERS patients in Korea
80 of them got the virus from being in the same room
or hospital ward as other MERS patients.
59 of them were friends or family that wound up visiting the hospital
and 33 were doctors or individuals in the medical field.
Almost everybody who got MERS in Korea got it from going to the hospital
or being closely related to MERS patients.
This isn’t something you pick up accidentally while eating at a street food stall.
It’s really quite difficult for you to get MERS
But still, this might not settle your fears.
What happens if one of your friends is a secret MERS patient and hasn’t told you.
ARE YOU GOING TO GET MERS AND DIE?!
Well, here are some more numbers for you.
Of the 27 people who died from MERS in Korea
9 of them were in theirs 60s,
8 of them were in theirs 70s,
5 of them were in their 80s,
4 of them were in their 50s,
and one of them was in their 40s.
Also, more importantly, the severe cases of MERS that wind up resulting in death
are in those people that have pre-existing medical conditions already
In other words, the people that are dying from MERS
are either really old or really sick already
If you’re young and fairly healthy, the MERS death cloud is not going to pick you
off.
There’s also a really important number here for you to think about:
The 172 MERS patients are people that are actively seeking treatment for MERS
There is a very good chance that many more people have been exposed to MERS
but haven’t actually felt any symptoms
and have just walked it off like a case of the sniffles
In fact, it’s been recently shown, and this is really important here:
That more than 40,000 people in people in Saudi Arabia have contracted MERS
but didn’t know about it, and now are totally fine
and in fact are immune to MERS in the future
and this here is a huge number because the big number that everybody thinks about
is 40% Mortality Rate
But, if this was the case, if 40% of 40,000 people in Saudi Arabia died,
that would be 16,000 people, and that did not happen.
The 40% Mortality Rate is for people that already really are sick
and are going to the hospital to try to be treated
like, hey, my kidneys are failing, can you help me out?
It’s not everybody.
It’s not, as soon as you get MERS, there’s a 40% chance of you dying.
There’s a very good chance that if you wind up getting MERS,
you will just walk it off, just like any other flu you wind up getting.
Imagine MERS is like a kitchen knife:
Sure: sometimes when you cut bread, you might cut your finger,
but you don’t die from that; you just walk it off, you grow a scab, and you’ll be fine.
But, sometimes you wind up being stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife,
and in that case you have to go to the hospital,
and there’s a chance that you might die.
Does that mean that all kitchen knives are gonna kill you?
No!
But sometimes they might.
So, to reiterate, and hopefully to crush your fears.
MERS is not an airborne disease
Getting MERS is a little bit difficult
and only people that have preexisting conditions are at risk
And, if somehow against all odds you wind up getting MERS
you probably won’t even notice it.
So please, calm down.
Only 27 people have died of MERS so far in Korea
Compare that to the 420 people that have died
of traffic accidents in May of 2013
You have a much bigger chance of dying from a car then you do of dying from MERS
Yet car accidents aren’t in the news as much as MERS is
It’s really overblown.
Calm down people.
Nothing to see here.
However, if you are interested a little bit more information
I wrote about it in our blog post so click on the link here
and we can carry on the discussion over there.
We also wound up asking people at our coffee shop
what they wound up thinking about the MERS outbreak
so if you click on the video over here you can see
what other people in South Korea think about it as well
Spoiler alert: it’s all overblown
Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe for more well informed
and information heavy TLDRs, such as this one
Now, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go take care of my wife
who has DENGUE
DENGUE!
DENGUEEEE
DENGUEEEEEEEEE
Also, very importantly,
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