By the Numbers: Fear Over MERS Impacts South Korean Economy

South Korean president Park Geun-hye postponed her scheduled trip to the United States on June 10 to supervise containment of an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The spread of MERS in South Korea started with a 68-year-old man who was diagnosed with the virus on May 20 after his business trip to the Middle East. South Korea now has the second highest number of infections after Saudi Arabia with a total of 172 infections and 27 deaths as of June 22, 2015.

Although the number of new cases has been in decline, MERS has impacted South Korea’s economy, the fourth-largest in Asia, in unprecedented terms. We explore consumer and government responses that have been unique to the MERS outbreak by the numbers.