By Sangmi Cha
SEOUL (Reuters) – Medical experts say the South Korean governor is not taking the necessary steps to achieve his goal of achieving herd immunity to the coronavirus by November through mass vaccinations.
They say the government has failed to secure enough vaccines and has also been slow to train staff for storage, distribution and vaccination. It was also left behind to make decisions about vaccination sites, they said.
The experts probably said that the government’s timeline – which calls for the vaccination of key people to start in February – will be vaccinated with 32 million-36 million people by September.
To reach the September target, the government needs 4,000 doctors to see at least 400,000 people a day, said Jun Byung-yool, a former director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The government has instructed each local government to secure their own manpower, but rural areas would need medical personnel and infrastructure significantly to carry out the vaccinations,” Jun said.
“It’s just realistically impossible to vaccinate 400,000 people a day.”
President Moon Jae-in on Monday tried to reassure residents in the face of public criticism that the vaccination plans were too slow because the country was struggling to curb a third wave of the pandemic.
“I think we will eventually reach full herd immunity,” he told a news conference.
South Korea has received 106 million doses to cover 56 million people, more than its 52 million population, from four drug manufacturers – AstraZeneca, Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen, Moderna Inc – and the WHO’s vaccination scheme COVAX.
Health authorities acknowledge that there are major barriers, but said their timeline is based on the need to learn from vaccine programs in other countries. Eventually, South Korea would complete its vaccination efforts as fast or faster than many other places, they said.
“The estimated size of the vaccination centers and the manpower may vary depending on the population size of the city, province or district,” KDCA director Jeong Eun-kyeong said at a briefing. “We make detailed guidelines for the operation of the sites.”
Doctors said it would take 30 minutes to an hour before each person entered, examined and waited for any anaphylactic reaction to the shot.
Choi Jae-wook of the Korean Medical Association said he was skeptical that herd immunity would be achieved by November due to the vague vaccination period for vaccine and because the approximately 250 public health clinics across the country would not be enough to administer the shots. .
“The government has only set out an ambiguous timeline of quarterly arrivals. Vaccines that require cold chain storage have specific ways of dealing with them, but the preparations cannot be done,” Choi said.
Vaccination of the elderly with underlying conditions is another problem, as special measures must be taken, said Eom Joong-sik, a professor of infectious diseases at Gachon University Gil Medical Center.
(Reporting by Sangmi Cha; Edited by Angus MacSwan)