Government: "Sufficient Vaccine Supply... 'Vaccine Procurement' Exhaustive Debates Must Stop"

Son Young-rae, Head of the Strategic Planning Division at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters (Spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Welfare), is briefing on the results of the COVID-19 Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters at the Government Seoul Office Building on January 17. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Soyoung] The government emphasized that it has secured enough vaccines to achieve herd immunity against COVID-19 and that the exhausting debates related to 'vaccine supply' should be stopped.

On the 25th, Son Young-rae, head of the Social Strategy Division at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters, announced at the regular briefing of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters that a contract was signed the previous day to additionally procure 20 million doses (40 million shots) of vaccines from the U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer, saying, "Concerns about vaccine supply have now been sufficiently resolved."

He pointed out, "We should stop the exhausting debates about whether vaccine supply will be disrupted in the future and focus on the present," adding, "The previous debates have been confusing and have not helped with quarantine and vaccination efforts."

He continued, "There have been criticisms comparing our country to Southeast Asia or Africa, which have introduced Chinese and Russian vaccines, suggesting that our supply is insufficient. This can be interpreted as prioritizing vaccine supply over safety and efficacy verification," expressing a negative view.

Son also said, "In the case of the UK, which the media refers to as a vaccine-advanced country and introduces as recovering daily life, pubs and sports facilities have reopened, but theaters and concert halls remain closed," adding, "They are only now beginning to lift extreme closures, whereas we have had access to such facilities throughout the past year."

He also mentioned, "More than half of the vaccinated population in the UK received the AstraZeneca vaccine, and experts and the European Medicines Agency have stated that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh the risks. However, in our country, extremely rare side effects have been highlighted, leading to criticism that the amount procured is too large."

He emphasized, "The daily life we hope for is freer and safer from COVID-19 than that of the UK," and added, "We need to look more deeply into foreign cases to understand how much safer vaccination makes us and use them as lessons."

Furthermore, he stated, "The government's goal is to control the COVID-19 outbreak through appropriate social management while avoiding large-scale lockdown measures that cause extreme damage to low-income and middle-class groups," arguing, "Lockdown measures seen in Europe or the U.S. cause excessive harm to vulnerable populations."

Meanwhile, despite securing sufficient vaccine supplies, individuals are not expected to be given the choice of vaccines.

Son said, "When the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency announced the vaccination plan on January 28, it decided not to give individuals the right to choose vaccines, and vaccinations are proceeding under that policy in the first half of the year," adding, "There has been no consideration of granting choice in the second half."

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