Choi Won-suk is a photojournalist at The Korea Times. Before joining the newspaper, he also worked as a photojournalist with AFP and St. Joseph News-Press in Missouri. He spent 13 years in the United States, graduating with a Bachelor of Journalism degree (Cum Laude) from the University of Missouri - Columbia and a Master of Arts in Photography from Ohio University - Athens. Over the past 11 years, Choi covered various news events such as presidential elections, the 2019 North Korea-United States Hanoi Summit and 2022 Qatar World Cup. But above all, Choi believes in local journalism and finds a lot of joy telling life stories of ordinary citizens in small neighborhoods.
PHOTOS Vaccination campaign begins
A resident of a nursing home reacts as she gets an injection of the COVID-19 vaccine in Cologne, Germany, Dec. 27. AP
By Choi Won-suk
By Kang Hyun-kyung
COVID-19 phobia shows signs of coming to an end as vaccination programs kick off around the world.
Starting in Britain in early December, several countries have begun to inoculate their citizens to protect them from the virus that took the lives of over 1.7 million people globally since late 2019 when the first infection case was reported in China.
In the United States, soldiers, veterans and healthcare workers were prioritized in the vaccine program. COVID-19 vaccines arrived in South Korea for U.S. military personnel and they got shots.
The global vaccination programs made Koreans anxious in December as they didn’t hear from the government when they can be vaccinated.
In this Dec. 15 file photo, a droplet falls from a syringe after a healthcare worker is injected with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at Women & Infants Hospital in Providence, R.I. The Vatican has declared it “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines based on research that used fetal tissue from abortions. AP
Syringes are prepared to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at a nursing home in Bad Windsheim, Germany, Dec. 27. Reuters
President Moon Jae-in was under attack for his government’s ill-preparedness.
After zigzagging about the government’s efforts to procure vaccines, Moon eventually unveiled the plan to inoculate some 20 million Koreans. He said he had a phone conversation with the head of Moderna to secure the two-dose vaccine.
On Wednesday, the U.S. vaccine developer confirmed it’s in talks with South Korea to provide 40 million or more doses
of its vaccine. It said the potential distribution of the Moderna vaccine is expected to start in the second quarter of 2021.
Vaccines are put into a refrigerator by pharmacist Krisztina Biro in the Clinical Pharmacy of the University of Debrecen in Debrecen, Hungary, after the first batch of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines against COVID-19 arrived in the country, Dec. 26. AP
Moon and members of the ruling camp heaved a sigh of relief.
Before the announcement of the vaccine procurement and inoculation plan, President Moon had been under mounting pressure. He was portrayed by opposition party lawmakers as an incompetent leader who didn’t do anything when other world leaders were in a hurry to procure vaccines to save their people from the deadly virus.
South Korea is set to hold by-elections to elect mayors of Seoul and Busan on April 7, making Moon anxious about the possible fallout on the election results.
“For the love of Native People” has been written in ink by a colleague on the arm of Dr. Sarah Hill, a dentist with the Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB) and a member of the Spirit Lake Dakota tribe, after she received a shot of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, at the SIHB, on Dec. 21 in Seattle, Washington. AFP
The clock is ticking. And the main opposition party is set to use the vaccine card to criticize the Moon government.
With the announcement from Moderna, President Moon will be able to deflect criticism over his vaccine diplomacy.