South Korea administered its first coronavirus vaccines available to people in long-term care facilities on Friday, launching a mass immunization campaign that health officials hope to restore some level of normality by the end of the year.
The launch of vaccines comes at a critical time for the country, which has seen its hard-won gains against the virus wiped out by a winter wave and is struggling to mitigate the economic shock of the pandemic that has decimated jobs in the service sector.
“I felt very anxious last year, but I feel safer now after receiving the vaccine,” said Lee Gyeong-soon, a nursing home worker, who was shot at a public health center in northern Seoul.
Health officials plan to complete the injection of the first of two doses in about 344,000 residents and workers in long-term care centers and 55,000 frontline medical workers by the end of March.
“We took the first historic step to restore normalcy,” said senior Ministry of Health official Son Young-rae during an interview.
He said the government decided to extend current levels of social detachment for at least another two weeks, restricting private social gatherings of five or more people and banning meals at home after 10 pm, to help create a safe environment for women. vaccines.
Separately, doctors, nurses and other health professionals who treat patients with COVID-19 will begin receiving the injections developed by Pfizer and BioNTech from 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 employees of general hospitals, paramedics, quarantine workers and people over 65 years of age, before larger groups of adults start receiving vaccines in the summer.
In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:
– Hong Kong began administering its first COVID-19 vaccines to the public, initiating its free vaccination program for all 7.5 million residents. People aged 60 and over and health professionals are among the approximately 2.4 million people currently prioritized to receive vaccines at community centers and outpatient clinics in Hong Kong. The government said enrollment for the first two weeks of the program was full. Participants so far will receive the vaccine from Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac. One million doses arrived in the city last week, and Hong Kong’s leader Carrie Lam and other senior government officials were vaccinated first in an attempt to boost confidence in the program. Hong Kong has signed deals 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 the victims of COVID-19 and will allow burials, after months of protests by Muslims and others that it is insensitive to religious beliefs. The government issued the decree on Thursday night allowing cremation and burials following stipulated health guidelines. The insistence on cremation only cited possible contamination of groundwater, despite the fact that the World Health Organization and local medical professional bodies claim that such claims have no scientific basis.
– A state of emergency that was established to contain the coronavirus in Japan will be suspended in six urban areas this weekend, while remaining in the Tokyo area for another week. The government minister in charge of the pandemic measures told a government panel about the changes, although the official decision has not been announced. The state of emergency began in January and focused on asking restaurants, bars and other establishments to close at 8 pm. The partial lifting of the emergency, and just a week earlier, highlights Japan’s eagerness to keep the economy moving. Separately, Japan said that shipments of vaccines against coronavirus will reach local government offices by the end of June to inoculate the country’s 36 million elderly people. Those aged 65 and over are scheduled to receive vaccines after health care professionals. But concerns have grown over a broad supply of imported vaccines.
– China approved two more COVID-19 vaccines for wider use. The CanSino Biologics vaccine is the first developed by a Chinese company that requires only one injection. CanSino said it is 65.28% effective 28 days after taking the dose. The other recently approved vaccine is from a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, the Wuhan Institute of Biologics, which said its vaccine is 72.51% effective. Vaccines from Sinovac and the Sinopharm subsidiary in Beijing have previously been approved and are in use. Sinovac and Sinopharm said they will be able to manufacture 1 billion vaccines a year 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 produce up to 100 million doses per year.