People Power Party: "Public Concern Over Chinese Vaccines Is High... Must Promise Not to Approve Them to the Public"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Ji-eun] The People Power Party's COVID-19 Countermeasures Special Committee held its 6th meeting on the 1st and urged, "There is great public concern about Chinese-made vaccines," and demanded, "The government must promise the public that vaccines without secured safety will not be approved domestically."

On this day, the committee criticized the government's lukewarm attitude toward vaccines and emphasized the need for aggressive vaccine procurement efforts. The committee pointed out, "Last September, the government announced it would secure vaccines for 30 million people, equivalent to 60% of the entire population, but recently changed the plan through party-government discussions to secure vaccines for 44 million people," adding, "The important thing is that there are only words about securing vaccines, but nowhere is it disclosed how or by what method they will be secured."

They stated, "For vaccines currently undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials, most of the supply available by next year has already been pre-purchased by other countries," criticizing, "The United States (7.9 doses per capita), Canada (10.9 doses), the United Kingdom (7.5 doses), Japan (2.3 doses), and others have secured vaccine quantities several times their population, while South Korea has been negotiating for several months."

The committee said, "While countries worldwide are engaging in a vaccine procurement war to end COVID-19 within their borders, South Korea is making the hard-to-understand claim that 'vaccinations will be scheduled for the second half of next year, so there is no need to rush,'" and questioned, "Is this not a poor excuse to conceal the government's incompetence in vaccine procurement while overlooking the public's suffering from COVID-19?"

They continued, noting that COVID-19 is quietly spreading among younger generations, and urged active testing using rapid diagnostic kits targeting groups with frequent contact with unspecified many people, such as workers in nursing hospitals and elderly facilities, delivery workers, couriers, and door-to-door salespeople, while also requesting the preparation of measures to secure hospital beds in anticipation of an increase in severe patients.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.