South Korea delivered its first shot of coronavirus vaccines at long-term care facilities on Friday and launched a mass vaccination campaign that health authorities hope it will restore some normality by the end of the year.
The deployment of vaccines comes at a critical time for the country, which has seen the very lucrative gains against the virus destroyed by the winter push and struggling to reduce the economic shock of the pandemic that has reduced jobs in the service sector.
“I felt very anxious over the past year, but I now feel safer after receiving the vaccine,” said Lee Gyeong quick-care nurse.
Health authorities plan to spray the first dose of approximately 344,000 residents and workers at long-term care facilities and 55,000 medical workers up front by the end of March.
“We have taken the historic first step towards restoring normalcy,” said Son Young-rae, senior health ministry official, during a briefing.
He said the government had decided to increase the current levels of social distance by another two weeks, and to ban the private social gatherings of five or more people and ban indoor dining after 10pm, to provide a safe environment for vaccinations to create.
Separately, doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals treating COVID-19 patients will begin receiving the shots developed by Pfizer and BioNTech from Saturday. The Pfizer BioNTech vaccines, which South Korea acquired through the WHO-backed COVAX program, arrived at Incheon International Airport on Friday and will be transported to five major COVID-19 treatment hospitals.
The next available vaccinations are likely to go to workers at general hospitals, paramedics, quarantine workers and people over the age of 65 before broader groups of adults start getting shots in the summer.
In other developments around the Asia-Pacific region:
– Hong Kong begins administering its first COVID-19 vaccine to the public, and begins the program that offers free vaccinations to all 7.5 million residents. People aged 60 and over and health workers are among the 2.4 million people currently being vaccinated at community centers and outpatients in Hong Kong. The government said registrations for the first two weeks of the program are full. Participants will so far receive the vaccine from Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Sinovac. Last week, a million doses arrived in the city and Carrie Lam, leader in Hong Kong, and other top government officials were first vaccinated to boost confidence in the program. Hong Kong has entered into transactions to buy 22.5 million doses of vaccines, from Sinovac, AstraZeneca and Fosun Pharma, which supplies the vaccine developed by Pfizer-BioNTech.
The Sri Lankan government has changed its policy to allow cremations only for COVID-19 victims and will allow funerals after months of protests by Muslims and others that it is insensitive to religious beliefs. The government issued the decision Thursday night to allow cremation and funerals according to health guidelines. The insistence on cremation only cited the possible contamination of groundwater, despite the fact that the World Health Organization and local medical professional organizations say that such allegations have no scientific basis.
A state of emergency imposed to curb the coronavirus in Japan is being lifted in six urban areas over the weekend while he stays in the Tokyo area for another week. The government minister responsible for pandemic measures has told a government panel about the changes, although the official decision has not been announced. The state of emergency began in January and was aimed at asking restaurants, bars and other businesses to close at 8pm. The emergency was partially lifted, and just a week too early, stressing Japan’s eagerness to keep the economy going. Separately, Japan said coronavirus vaccines would arrive at local government offices by the end of June to vaccinate the country’s 36 million elderly people. Those who are 65 years or older will be vaccinated, according to health workers. But concerns have grown over a large amount of imported vaccines.
– China approved two more COVID-19 vaccines for wider use. The CanSino Biologics vaccine is the first to be developed by a Chinese company that requires only one shot. CanSino said it was 65.28% effective 28 days after the dose was given. The other newly approved vaccine comes from a subsidiary of Sinopharm, the Wuhan Institute of Biologics, which according to state ownership is 72.51% effective. Vaccinations of Sinovac and of Sinopharm’s subsidiary in Beijing were approved earlier and are being used. Sinovac and Sinopharm have both said they could produce 1 billion shots by the end of this year. A military researcher told state media that CanSino can produce up to 300 million doses per year, and the Wuhan Institute said it can deliver up to 100 million doses per year.