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| People wait in case of possible side effects after receiving COVID-19 vaccinations at a designated center in Dongjak District, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap |
Over 13 million people to receive first dose by end of June
By Lee Hyo-jin
The government's COVID-19 vaccination program is picking up pace, raising hopes that the country will be able to reach its goal of creating herd immunity by November.
When the nationwide campaign started Feb. 26, the administration set the goal of achieving herd immunity by November by vaccinating 36 million individuals, or 70 percent of the country's 52 million population.
It also targeted administering first shots of the vaccine to at least 13 million people within the first half of the year, beginning with vulnerable members of the population and priority groups.
As of Saturday, 7.6 million people, or 14.8 percent of the population, had received at least one dose of the vaccine, while 4.4 percent has been fully immunized, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).
Given the inoculation and reservation rates so far, the health authorities expect the goal of vaccinating 13 million people with their first doses to be achieved by the end of June.
"This week, around 300,000 to 350,000 individuals will be vaccinated per day, and the daily number of administered people will be scaled up to around 500,000 in the next couple of weeks," said KDCA Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong at a briefing, Friday, adding that the goal will be reached by the end of the month.
The country's mass inoculation capacity, in tandem with a stable supply of doses scheduled to arrive in the coming months, may bring Korea a step closer to achieving herd immunity.
Although the government has secured enough doses to inoculate 99 million people, or nearly double the country's population, its vaccine rollout has been sluggish as most of the supply was set to be delivered during the latter half of the year.
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| A man receives a coronavirus vaccine at an inoculation center in Dongjak, Seoul, Friday. Yonhap |
According to the KDCA, a total of 80 million doses are scheduled to arrive in the third quarter.
In addition to the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines currently being administered in Korea, the country received initial doses of Moderna's vaccine, June 1, followed by single doses of Johnson & Johnson vaccine ― enough for 1 million people ― provided by the United States, Saturday,.
However, local medical experts say that several challenges still lie ahead for Korea before reaching herd immunity in time.
They believe the government should work harder to relieve lingering jitters over vaccine safety, while curbing the spread of COVID-19 variants which may undermine the vaccination drive.
"In the United Kingdom where most of the population were vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, like in Korea, the number of daily new cases has surged up to 6,000 following the spread of the new variants," said Chon Eun-mi, a professor of respiratory medicine at Ewha Womans University Mokdong Hospital.
Easing public anxiety over vaccine side effects will become more important in order to raise the inoculation rate when vaccinations will be widely expanded to younger people in the coming months, according to Professor Jeong Ki-seok at Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital.
"Although the reservation rate of the elderly population was higher than expected in the first quarter, the rate may not be that high among younger people who feel the vaccine is less necessary as they believe the coronavirus is less harmful for them," he said.
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