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President Park’s approval rating hits all-time low amid MERS outbreak

June 19, 2015
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, right, talks with health care workers wearing protective gears as she visits the National Medical Center housing MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, patients in Seoul, South Korea, June 5, 2015. Sales of surgical masks surge amid fears of the deadly, poorly understood virus. Airlines announce "intensified sanitizing operations." More than 1,100 schools close and 1,600 people - and 17 camels in zoos - are quarantined. The current frenzy in South Korea over MERS brings to mind the other menacing diseases to hit Asia over the last decade - SARS, which killed hundreds, and bird flu. (Yonhap)

South Korean President Park Geun-hye, right, talks with health care workers wearing protective gears as she visits the National Medical Center housing MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, patients in Seoul, South Korea, June 5, 2015. (Yonhap)

SEOUL (Yonhap) — President Park Geun-hye’s job approval rating fell to an all-time low over the deadly MERS virus that has killed 24 people, a poll showed Friday.

A poll released by polling agency Gallup Korea showed 29 percent approved of the job Park is doing, down 4 percentage points from a week earlier.

Those who disapproved of Park’s job performance came to 61 percent, up 3 percentage points from a week earlier.

It marked the third time that Park’s job approval rating has sunk to 29 percent this year.

The government has been under fire for its poor initial response to the outbreak of the virus.

Park has repeatedly vowed to end the spread of the virus, but the poll results suggested that she failed to win back the public’s confidence.

The survey was conducted on 1,000 adults between Tuesday and Thursday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.