On the First Day of Pre-Booking for Youth Vaccination, 20% of 16-17 Year Olds Applied for Vaccination

On the afternoon of the 1st, a citizen is heading to the vaccination room at the Songpa-gu Vaccination Center installed in the Sports and Culture Center in Songpa-gu, Seoul. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] COVID-19 vaccination for children and adolescents aged 12 to 17 began on the 5th, and the reservation rate for adolescents aged 16 to 17, who started reservations first, exceeded 20% within 4 hours of the start.

According to the COVID-19 Vaccination Response Promotion Team on the 6th, as of midnight on the 6th, four hours after the system opened for pre-reservations for vaccination for adolescents aged 16 to 17 (born in 2004-2005), 186,855 people had applied for vaccination. This means that 20.8% of the 898,784 eligible individuals wished to be vaccinated immediately upon the start of reservations.

For adolescents aged 16 to 17, pre-reservations will be conducted for about four weeks until 6 p.m. on the 29th. Vaccinations will be administered at nationwide designated medical institutions from the 18th of this month to the 13th of next month. The vaccine used is the Pfizer vaccine, which is currently the only vaccine approved for those under 18 in Korea.

The health authorities explained that since reservations close weekly, adolescents aged 16 to 17 planning to make pre-reservations according to their and their guardians' wishes can receive vaccinations on earlier dates and times the sooner they participate in the reservation.

Reservations made between the 5th and 9th can be scheduled for any date throughout the entire vaccination period from the 18th of this month to the 13th of next month. Reservations from the 10th to the 14th can only be made for dates after the 25th. Reservations from the 15th to the 21st can be made starting from vaccinations on the 1st of next month, and reservations from the 22nd to the 29th can only be made for the last week of vaccination, from the 8th to the 13th of next month.

The authorities plan to ensure that adolescents will not face disadvantages at school or elsewhere even if they do not receive the vaccination. However, they strongly recommend vaccination for children and adolescents with underlying health conditions, as their risk of severe progression from COVID-19 infection is about twice that of healthy adolescents.

Meanwhile, 680 people applied for booster shot (additional vaccination) reservations for the elderly aged 60 and over and high-risk groups, whose reservations also started on the same day. The Promotion Team stated, "Reservations will be sequentially opened for those who have reached six months after completing vaccination," and explained that it is difficult to provide separate calculations of eligible individuals and corresponding reservation rates.

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