The importance of infection control has been increasingly recognized after the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in Korea. Infection management guidelines are based on viral pathway and kinetic studies. Viral kinetics is, in a broad sense, defined as the change rate of the virus over time after an infection and in a narrow sense, as a mathematical model that describes viral kinetics. Based on the results of these kinetic studies, the life cycle and viral infection can be understood and utilized to treat and manage infections. To control viral infection, viral shedding and its transmission should be properly understood. Classically, the mode of transmission can be divided into airborne, droplet, and contact transmissions. Based on viral shedding and transmission, the guidelines are established, which can be largely divided into standard, contact, droplet, and airborne precautions and isolation. For influenza virus or rhinovirus infection, standard and droplet precautions are applied. For parainfluenza virus or respiratory syncytial virus infection, standard and contact precautions are applied. For MERS coronavirus, standard, contact, and droplet precautions are required with isolation of patients and contacted people. Kindly check if suggested revision retained your intended meaning. The types of specimens widely varies, and due to mucus and different host immune status, the exact quantification is difficult. Despite these limitations, kinetic studies on respiratory viruses have been actively studied, and efforts to efficiently manage infections by conducting various studies are continuously required.