A few hours later, when it's 9:00 p.m. Sunday in Vancouver and 7:00 a.m. Monday in Riyadh, the Saudi media still have nothing to say about—neither in English nor in Arabic. Even the MOH's own Twitter feed has nothing to say about it to its 210,0093 followers (of which I am now one). Maybe the Saudis are trying to absorb the news also.
Apart from the four deaths, the three new cases offer food for thought: a 63-year-old woman in the Riyadh region, a 42-year-old (male?) in the Eastern region, and a 2-year-old (boy? girl?) in Jeddah.
The cases affect people of different ages, in different areas. This is not like the early cases, when you could imagine one unfortunate person picking it up somehow and then transmitting it to hospital workers or other patients. Now MERS seems to have spread right across Saudi Arabia, from the Persian Gulf in the east to Taif in the west and Jeddah on the Red Sea. Those two cities actually flank Mecca, which does not bode well for this year's Hajj.
I would like to think that the Saudi political and health authorities are working very hard to track down the origin and vector of this disease. But public health, like justice, must not only be done; it must be seen to be done. So far, the Saudis have missed several opportunities to show the world they're on the case.
