Booster shot plan premature: medical experts

People are inoculated for the coronavirus at a vaccination center in Seongbuk District, Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

Government advised to focus first on strengthening ongoing vaccination drive

By Lee Hyo-jin

While the government is considering the possibility of providing booster shots to better respond to the spread of coronavirus variants, medical experts believe it is too early for Korea to discuss a third round of inoculations, citing its slow vaccine rollout.

Amid rising cases of infections caused by the rapidly spreading variant viruses, including the Delta variant, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) said, Thursday, that additional inoculations and booster shots were being considered as a potential response measure.

A booster shot is an extra administration of a vaccine, given at a predetermined time after the initial injections in order to raise or maintain an individual's immunity against the targeted virus.

“We are closely monitoring such moves in other countries to decide which vaccines to use for the booster shots and at which intervals. Additional plans will be made following the results of clinical trials,” KDCA Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong said at a briefing.

However, local medical experts said that starting a discussion about a possible third round of vaccinations seems untimely for Korea.

“The plan doesn't seem feasible at this point in time, considering the low inoculation rate among the general public,” said Kim Woo-joo, an infectious disease specialist at Korea University Guro Hospital. “The government should concentrate more on the ongoing first and second rounds of inoculations.”

As of Thursday, around 15 million people, or 30 percent of the population, have received at least one shot of the vaccine, while 8.8 percent have been fully vaccinated, according to the KDCA.

Chon Eun-mi, a professor of respiratory medicine at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital, believes that strengthened quarantine measures will be more effective than booster shots in preventing the spread of the new variants.

“Plans to offer additional shots may be possible in the United States or Israel, where most of the population has already been immunized. But here, such plans raise eyebrows, especially among people between the ages of 20 and 50, most of whom haven't even received their first dose yet,” she told The Korea Times.

Chon said the government should speed up the vaccination drive in the third quarter, using Moderna and Pfizer instead of AstraZeneca, which has been found to be less effective against the new strains.

The experts also expressed concerns that the forthcoming eased social distancing measures starting in July will worsen the COVID-19 situation, and urged the government to be more prudent in scaling down the regulations.

Meanwhile, the country reported 634 daily new infections for Thursday, among which were 602 local transmissions, raising the total caseload to 153,789, according to the KDCA.