South Korea’s surge in vaccination adds momentum to Asian push

South Korea is expected to vaccinate three-quarters of its 52 million population with Covid-19 in the next three months, as East Asian governments’ vaccine launches are gaining momentum after early delays.

Seoul health officials announced on Thursday to expand their Vaccination schedule 13 million people (a quarter of the population) were vaccinated two weeks in advance and then opened to the public.

The surge in vaccination comes after Asian countries outperformed Europe and the United States in their initial response to the coronavirus pandemic. behind Their Western counterparts are securing and providing jabs this year.

East Asia’s struggle is due to the lack of local Covid vaccine manufacturers and the inertia of policy makers Early success Suppress the virus.

A strong rebound in export growth and signs of inflationary pressures are masked Weak domestic recovery With continued social distancing and restrictions on travel, tourism and mass activities throughout the region.

Société Générale analysts described China’s failure to accelerate domestic consumption as “a big problem”, and the country’s retail and service industries are still underperforming, while Export recovery Set to medium.

As the pace of vaccination is accelerating, Seoul is negotiating with other governments to quickly relax travel restrictions.

“Despite strong exports, the downturn in the service industry-tourism, retail, catering and hotels-makes it difficult for the economy to form a virtuous circle,” said Park Zongxun, head of research at Standard Chartered Bank in Seoul.

South Korea will also allow citizens to vaccinate different vaccines as part of a plan to address shortages and achieve herd immunity targets by November. This means that approximately 760,000 people, including the medical staff who initially received the Oxford/AstraZeneca injection, can receive a second dose of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine.

Jin Dee, a professor of infectious diseases at Suncheonxiang University Hospital, said: “It seems that things are going according to the government’s plan, and the public has almost no resistance to vaccination.”

Although Tokyo is eager to vaccinate citizens before the July Olympics, South Korea’s vaccination rate has surpassed that of neighboring Japan. Although these two countries just started their exercise in April, the cumulative dose per 100 people in South Korea has jumped to more than 30 in recent days, while Japan has only more than 20.

China, which also suffered initial delays, has injected more than 900 million doses of vaccine for its 1.4 billion people.

Jeong Eun-kyeoung, head of the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said that 80 million doses of vaccine will arrive in South Korea in the third quarter of this year, of which 10 million doses will arrive in July.

“There is hope of returning to a normal life… But with the current vaccination rate, we cannot stop the community spread of the virus,” Zheng said.

In order to encourage vaccination, South Korea is introducing incentives, such as allowing vaccinated people not to wear masks outdoors and not being restricted from gatherings of four or more people. Vaccination sites are also expanding to companies that have their own medical facilities.

A series of commercial transactions between the Korean Biopharmaceutical Group and leading foreign vaccine developers have boosted local confidence.

SK Bioscience signed a contract to produce AstraZeneca needles for domestic use and export.It also signed a license agreement Novax Produced 40 million doses for South Korea and signed contract manufacturing agreements for global supply.

Samsung Biopharmaceuticals, the country’s largest pharmaceutical contract manufacturer, plans to start producing Moderna vaccines for South Korea and the global market (excluding the United States) in the second half of this year. Another biotechnology company, GL Rapha, will produce a certain dose of Russian satellite V jabs for global use.

Additional reporting by Sherry Fei Ju in Beijing