South Korea administered its first coronavirus vaccine shots to people in long-term care centers on Friday, launching a mass vaccination campaign that health authorities expect it to restore a certain level of normalcy by the end of the year.
The launch of vaccines comes at a critical time for the country, which has seen its hard-earned gains against the virus eroded by a winter wave and is struggling to mitigate the economic shock of the pandemic that decimated jobs of the services sector.
“I felt very anxious last year, but now I feel safer after getting the vaccine,” said nursing home worker Lee Gyeong-soon, who received her shot at a public health center. from the north of Seoul.
Health authorities expect to complete the injection of the first two-dose to about 344,000 long-term caregiver residents and workers and 55,000 front-line medical workers by the end of March.
“We have taken the historic first step to return to normalcy,” said Son Young-rae, a senior Health Ministry official during a briefing.
He said the government has decided to extend the current levels of social distancing for at least two more weeks, limiting private social gatherings of five or more people and banning indoor food after 10pm, to help create a safe environment for vaccines.
Aside from that, doctors, nurses and other health professionals treating patients with COVID-19 will begin receiving vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech starting Saturday. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which South Korea obtained through the WHO-supported COVAX program, arrived at Incheon International Airport on Friday and will be transported to five major COVID-19 treatment hospitals.
The next available vaccines are likely to go to general hospital workers, paramedics, quarantine workers, and people over the age of 65 before larger groups of adults begin receiving shots in the summer.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
– Hong Kong began administering its first COVID-19 vaccines to the public, starting its program by offering free vaccines to all 7.5 million residents. People aged 60 and over and health workers are among the 2.4 million people who currently have priority for receiving vaccines at community centers and outpatient clinics in Hong Kong. The government said registrations for the first two weeks of the program are complete. So far participants will receive the vaccine from the Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac. One million doses arrived in the city last week and Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam and other senior government officials were vaccinated first to try to boost confidence in the program. Hong Kong has signed agreements to buy 22.5 million doses of vaccines from Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Fosun Pharma, which will deliver the vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech.
– The Sri Lankan government has changed its policy of allowing only cremations for COVID-19 victims and will allow burials, after months of protests by Muslims and others, which is insensitive to religious beliefs. The government issued the decree Thursday night allowing cremation and burials following the stipulated sanitary guidelines. Insistence on cremation had only cited possible groundwater contamination, although the World Health Organization and local medical bodies claimed that these claims have no scientific basis.
– The state of emergency that was created to curb coronavirus in Japan will rise in six urban areas this weekend while it remains in the Tokyo area one more week. The government minister in charge of the pandemic measures has reported the changes to a government group, although the official decision has not been announced. The state of emergency began in January and focused on asking restaurants, bars and other businesses to close at 8 p.m. The partial emergence of the emergency, and just a week earlier, underscores Japan’s eagerness to keep the economy afloat. Separately, Japan said shipments of coronavirus vaccines will arrive at local government offices in late June to inoculate the nation’s 36 million seniors. People aged 65 and over are expected to be vaccinated after health workers. But concerns had been growing about a wide supply of imported vaccines.
– China has approved two more COVID-19 vaccines for wider use. The CanSino Biologics vaccine is the first to be developed by a Chinese company that only requires one shot. CanSino said it is 65.28% effective 28 days after the dose. The other recently approved vaccine comes from a state-owned subsidiary of Sinopharm, the Wuhan Institute of Biology, which said its vaccine is 72.51% effective. The vaccines from Sinovac and the Sinopharm subsidiary in Beijing were previously approved and are in use. Sinovac and Sinopharm have said they will be able to manufacture 1 billion shots a year by the end of this year. A military researcher told state media that CanSino can produce up to 300 million doses a year and the Wuhan Institute said it can produce up to 100 million doses a year.