MERS-CoV cases begin to tick over again after the Hajj....but not related right?

So by all accounts, Hajj2013 was a very successful event. A lot of lifelong wishes may have been fulfilled and the event went off without any apparent major hitch. A huge undertaking on many fronts.

However, during the Hajj it was hard to avoid seeing  Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-related headlines like...

No cases of MERS virus among pilgrims so far

and my particular favourite...

No infectious disease found

...at all that is. None. Not even bad influenza-like illnesses. No coughs or colds among 2,000,000 people gathered together; 1,300,000 having at some level, shared transportation into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)?

Seriously?

That second quote makes me realise just how important it was for the KSA ministry of health to control this aspect of the Hajj's message; no MERS-CoV disease here. So important, that the message was, to say the least, a little heavy handed.

But now, coinciding with the Hajj ending, we see MERS-CoV detections popping up (3 in 3-days). It's very hard to take seriously the MERS-message. Rest assured we're told, those cases are not at all linked to the Hajj - no travel to that region (now so specific that we are told there is no travel outside of Riaydh) in the previous 14-days. Ironic how that longer incubation period is useful in these happy reports, but not remembered in others, such as when the press note:

Saudi Hajj ends successfully with no reports of MERS virus

Click to enlarge. This graph is from September - highlights a similar case
reporting lull around umrah which then climbed rapidly and steadily
immediately afterwards.

The (longest) 14-day incubation period means we're not out of the woods yet (see my earlier post on timelines). 

Maybe we'll see no new cases among any of the pilgrims. Cool. I doubt that. We have seen 7-day or more breaks in reporting of new MERS-cases before, so this past week is not "out of character". Time will tell, especially from now on for a week or so. Watch that curve closely.

I still wish we could lay off the "everything is fine here right now" message, and instead tell us what's happening to find the host or what testing is being done among those who are not severely ill (take a look at China and H7N9 - include MERS-CoV in your regular respiratory virus testing panel for a little while and see what comes of it). That would be treating us a little less like we are so easily distracted by shiny baubles.