SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea reported a 10th death from the MERS virus on Thursday, although officials say they believe the disease has peaked. 
 
 South Korean police officers wearing masks as a precaution against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) stand guard during a rally in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 11, 2015. Experts from the World... (Associated Press) 
 
 Workers wearing protective gears spray antiseptic solution as a precaution against the spread of MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, virus outside Wangsimni Subway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Workers wearing protective gears fumigate and spray antiseptic solution as a precaution against the spread of MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, virus outside Wangsimni Subway Station in Seoul, South... (Associated Press) 
 
 A couple wears masks as a precaution against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) as they pass by street vendors wait for customers at Dongdaemoon market in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 11, 2015.... (Associated Press) 
 
 The victim was a 65-year-old man who had been treated for lung cancer and was hospitalized in the same facility as another MERS patient, the Health Ministry said. 
 
 The outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome has caused panic in South Korea. It has infected more than 120 people since the first case, a 68-year-old man who had traveled to the Middle East, was diagnosed on May 20. 
 
 About 3,800 people remained isolated Thursday after possible contact with infected people, according to the ministry, and more than 2,600 schools and kindergartens across South Korea were closed. 
 
 On Wednesday, experts from the World Health Organization and South Korea urged the schools' reopening as the outbreak in the country has so far been contained to hospitals and there is no evidence of sustained transmission in the community. 
 
 South Korean officials believe the outbreak may have peaked, although they say the next few days will be crucial to determining whether their efforts to isolate patients and control the disease have worked. Three people diagnosed with MERS were released from hospitals Thursday, bringing the total discharged to seven. 
 
 President Park Geun-hye postponed her planned U.S. visit scheduled next week to focus on coping with the outbreak. 
 
 Most of the deaths so far have been of people who had been suffering from pre-existing medical conditions, such as respiratory problems or cancer. 
 
 Experts think MERS can spread in respiratory droplets, such as by coughing. But transmissions have mainly occurred through close contact, such as living with or caring for an infected person. 
 
 MERS has mostly been centered in Saudi Arabia and has a death rate of about 40 percent among reported cases. It belongs to the family of coronaviruses that includes the common cold and SARS, and can cause fever, breathing problems, pneumonia and kidney failure. ||||| Passengers wearing masks to prevent contracting Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) ride on a travelator upon arrival at Incheon International Airport in Incheon, South Korea, June 2, 2015. 
 
 SEOUL South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Wednesday everything must be done to stop Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) as fear of the disease shut hundreds of schools and led to corporate giant Samsung calling off a staff conference. 
 
 Five more cases were confirmed on Wednesday taking to 30 the number infected in South Korea since the outbreak began there two weeks ago. Two people have died, fuelling fear in the country with the most cases outside the Middle East, where the disease first appeared. 
 
 While there has been no sustained human-to-human transmission, the nightmare scenario is the virus changes and spreads rapidly, as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) did in 2002-2003 killing about 800 people around the world. 
 
 MERS was first identified in humans in 2012 and is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that triggered SARS. But MERS has a much higher death rate at 38 percent, according to World Health Organization (WHO) figures. 
 
 The WHO puts the total number of MERS cases globally at 1,161, with at least 436 related deaths, the vast majority in the Middle East. There is no cure or vaccine. 
 
 "There are a lot people worried about the situation," Park told an emergency meeting of ministers and top officials. 
 
 "Everything must be done to stop any further spread." 
 
 More than 200 schools were shut on Wednesday, most of them in the province of Gyeonggi, around Seoul, where the first death occurred on Monday. 
 
 South Korea has quarantined or isolated about 1,300 people for possible MERS infection. 
 
 A spokesman of Samsung Group [SAGR.UL], South Korea's top conglomerate, said an orientation conference for new staff scheduled for this week has been postponed in accordance with government instructions on public safety. 
 
 Media in the region has reported tourists cancelling visits to South Korea. 
 
 Though the WHO has not recommended trade or travel restrictions, South Korean border control authorities have put a ban on overseas travel for people isolated for possible infection, a health ministry official said. 
 
 China last week reported its first MERS case, that of a South Korean man who tested positive after breaking a voluntary house quarantine and traveling to Hong Kong and on to mainland China. 
 
 PRESSURE GROWING 
 
 South Korea reported its first two deaths from MERS on Tuesday. 
 
 Of the five new cases, four had been in the same hospital as the first patient, a 68-year-old man who had just returned from a trip to four countries in the Middle East. The other, a 60-year-old man, caught it from another infected person. 
 
 Media said health authorities were conducting tests on an elderly patient who died on Sunday after sharing the same hospital ward with one of the two MERS-infected people who had died. Officials said it was likely she died of existing illness. 
 
 The new cases would bring the total number globally to 1,166, based on World Health Organization (WHO) data, with at least 436 related deaths. 
 
 Pressure is growing for the government to identify the hospitals treating infected patients as fear and confusion mount. 
 
 Public health authorities have insisted it was "helpful" to keep the names of the hospitals from the public, but in an opinion poll published on Wednesday 83 percent of respondents demanded that the government identify them. 
 
 Ian Jones, a specialist virologist at Britain’s University of Reading who has followed MERS since it emerged, said transparency would help in the effort to stop the outbreak. 
 
 "Being open about the cases, their locations and their condition, is best for control - even if this causes some alarm in the short term," he said. 
 
 Some experts have said the 38 percent death rate from MERS might be overstated as patients with little or no symptoms might go undetected. The death rate from SARS was 9 to 12 percent, rising to more than 50 percent for patients over 65. 
 
 Symptoms of MERS can include cough, fever and shortness of breath. It can lead to respiratory failure, the WHO said. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Sohee Kim and Se Young Lee in SEOUL; Writing by Tony Munroe and Jack Kim; Editing by Robert Birsel)
– Two people have died in South Korea and another 30 have tested positive for the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome, in what is now considered the largest MERS outbreak outside of the Middle East. Most of the 1,100 MERS cases reported since 2012 have come from the Middle East, where 470 have died. All confirmed cases in South Korea have been found in patients, visitors, or staff members at five hospitals the government has chosen not to name—despite a poll showing 83% of people demand they be identified, Reuters reports. Test results are pending for 99 suspected carriers, while 1,364 are being monitored for symptoms in isolation, the New York Times reports. More than 230 schools were shut down today amid fear of the virus' spread. However, a rep at a crisis management consulting firm says "a lot of fear we see now is rooted in the distrust of the government" after its response to the Sewol ferry disaster. The outbreak has been traced to a 68-year-old man who returned to the country on May 4 after traveling to Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. He visited three clinics on May 11 after developing a fever and cough but didn't disclose his trip; he wasn't properly diagnosed until May 20. A doctor, nurse, and 24 people at a hospital the man visited have since tested positive. A 58-year-old woman who had contact with the patient but was treated for asthma and released, died of MERS on Monday. "We apologize for the inappropriate initial responses," South Korea's health minister says. "We were too relaxed." Third-generation infections have been reported, meaning the initial patient infected a second patient who infected a third, and "further cases can be expected," the WHO says, per USA Today. But "there is no reason for people to panic," an infection control expert says, "and nothing so far that suggests to me that the virus has changed to become more dangerous."