The spread of South Korea’s MERS outbreak, in one chart

"We are fighting two wars: The war against the disease and the war against fear."

That's how a provincial governor in South Korea described the current outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that's killed 7 people, infected 95, quarantined over 2,500, and closed 2,200 schools. 

Here's what the pace of the outbreak looks like:

MERS, which presents as flu-like symptoms, has been mostly confined to Saudi Arabia, where it was first discovered in 2012. It's a deadly virus, but not a particularly infectious one. 

Except in hospitals. 

That partially explains why South Korea's outbreak has gotten as bad as it has. The first Korean patient became infected in early May while traveling in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He returned to South Korea, and developed a fever on May 11. He bounced around several clinics and hospitals. Until he reached Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, nobody realized he'd been traveling in the Arabian Peninsula, and there'd been no attempt to isolate him from other patients. Of the 95 infection cases, 37 come from one of these hospitals: St. Mary's in Pyeongtaek.

South Korea's neighbors are concerned. Hong Kong issued a "red" travel alert on Monday, meaning people should "adjust travel plans" and "avoid non-essential travel" to South Korea. Meanwhile, the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) are reminding Americans that they aren't at risk and shouldn't be freaking out. (Those same warnings didn't do much to calm US Ebola hysteria in the summer of 2014, of course.) 

Part of the reason people are so worried is because MERS looks, acts, and sounds like another virus we know well: Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which was the virus behind a major outbreak in Asia in 2003 that infected more than 8,000 people and killed more than 700. 

The key difference between the two is that SARS is much more infectious than MERS. So the current outbreak is a serious situation, but a manageable one.