As virus spreads, Koreans blame refusal to stop Chinese visitors

Confirmed cases of the deadly disease surged past 2,000 on Friday — doubling in two days and raising alarm about the worst outbreak outside of neighboring China. Supermarket shelves are emptying, mask prices are soaring and hospital beds are running out in Daegu city, where the disease has stricken many from a religious sect. Epidemiological models predict that infections in Korea will top 10,000 in March.

Governments in places including Japan and Hong Kong have suffered similar backlash for being slow to restrict Chinese visitors, while others that took a harder line, such as Singapore and Taiwan, have seen the pace of new cases slow. Still, it may already be too late for any policy shifts, with outbreaks centered in countries as far-flung as Iran and Italy making it harder to calibrate travel restrictions.

“We’ve rationally taken into consideration the effectiveness of outbreak-prevention measures, as well as the interests of our people,” Kang said in a statement Thursday. Now, buses are empty, restaurants are shut and kids are staying home from school. A concert featuring K-Pop boy band BTS scheduled for March 8 was postponed. Seomun market — the city’s largest, where vendors hawk everything from fresh vegetables to clothing — has been closed until Sunday.

While authorities don’t yet know how Patient 31 was infected — she didn’t have a record of traveling overseas — reports of the sect’s members returning from services in China have inflamed public sentiment. Moreover, several Chinese cities have in recent days moved to enforce quarantines on anyone who recently returned from South Korea, a blanket action of the sort that Seoul has so far spared Chinese arrivals.

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