"Increase Vaccination Rates" All-Out Effort... Incentives and Visit Reservations Under Review

Authorities to Announce Improvement Plan Next Week

Discussion on Incentives for Completed Vaccination Accelerates
In-Person Visits Allowed at Care Facilities Starting Next Month 1

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Improving the vaccination rate has emerged as the top priority for health authorities. While the previously troubling "vaccine drought" has eased recently with the steady arrival of supplies, the current issue is the sluggish rate of vaccination reservations. With COVID-19 vaccinations for the elderly aged 65 to 74 just a week away, the government is making an all-out effort to enhance the convenience of advance reservations while also considering incentives.

According to the COVID-19 Vaccination Response Promotion Team on the 21st, 297,000 doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine arrived in the country this morning through the COVAX Facility. These vaccines will be used for the vaccination of the elderly aged 75 and above, which began on the 1st of last month. Accordingly, new first-dose vaccinations with the Pfizer vaccine, which had been temporarily suspended, will resume from the 22nd. So far, a total of 8.32 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been introduced domestically.

Among the government's recent challenges, which can be summarized into two main issues?timely vaccine supply and increasing vaccination rates?the problem of timely supply has been temporarily alleviated. Additionally, the government is focusing on early vaccine procurement in connection with the Korea-US summit. Minister of Health and Welfare Kwon Deok-cheol also departed for the United States this morning to secure additional vaccines.

The problem lies in the advance reservation rate falling short of expectations. In particular, vaccinations for some elderly groups will begin on the 27th, but the reservation rate for these elderly groups is only 50.1%. Above all, the slow increase in reservation rates has deepened authorities' concerns. As of midnight the previous day, the vaccination reservation rates were 62.6% for ages 70?74, 55.1% for ages 65?69, and 39.7% for ages 60?64. The cumulative reservation rates since the 17th were 42.9% → 47.2% → 49.5%, showing a slowdown in growth compared to the early reservation period. At present, it is uncertain whether the government’s initial target of a 70?80% reservation rate by the deadline of the 3rd of next month can be achieved.

The authorities are monitoring reservation trends through this week and are preparing improvement measures, including vaccination incentives, for next week. Yoon Tae-ho, head of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters’ quarantine team, said, “We are listening to various voices from the field, including various incentives, and will actively guide measures to increase the reservation rate by organizing these suggestions.”

As part of this effort, the government has decided to allow face-to-face visits at nursing hospitals and facilities starting from the 1st of next month. If either the resident or the visitor has completed the second dose of the vaccine and two weeks have passed, contact visits will be permitted. If the visitor has completed vaccination, visits are allowed with mask-wearing only; however, if the visitor is unvaccinated and the facility’s first-dose vaccination rate is below 75%, additional PCR testing will be required.

Expansion of “visit reservations,” which were used during the vaccination of those aged 75 and above, is also being considered. This method involves local governments directly visiting or contacting individuals to obtain vaccination consent. Using this approach, the consent rate for those aged 75 and above exceeded 80%. Kim Ki-nam, head of the Vaccination Planning Division of the Promotion Team, said, “Some age groups have lower accessibility or lack awareness of reservations, so local governments plan to strengthen guidance and support reservations through public officials and community leaders.”

Meanwhile, as the focus of the COVID-19 response shifts toward vaccination, the stance on quarantine measures such as social distancing is clearly to maintain the status quo. The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters (CDSCH) decided to extend the current social distancing levels (Level 2 in the metropolitan area, Level 1.5 in non-metropolitan areas) and the ban on private gatherings of five or more people for three more weeks starting from the 24th. This marks the sixth extension since February 15, maintaining these measures for nearly four months. Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said at the CDSCH meeting, “The daily average number of confirmed cases has not decreased below the 500 range recently,” but added, “However, thanks to the early start of vaccinations at nursing hospitals and facilities, the number of severe cases has somewhat decreased, and hospital bed capacity remains sufficient.”

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