Covid-19 in South Korea: Prime Minister says herd immunity possible by Autumn

The South Korean government has said it is banking on herd immunity among citizens before Autumn. The Asian country has seen its slow vaccination program criticized 

We will achieve COVID-19 herd immunity soon-South Korea 

According to the South Korean president, it is aiming to get herd immunity for the coronavirus latest by Autumn. The prime minister said the government was sorry about the slow pace of vaccinations but will quicken its programs to get done. The Asian country was one of the first to suffer from the pandemic, however, it came out strongly after introducing mass testing and strong contact tracing of suspected individuals. 

However, despite these laudable feats, vaccinations have been slow. Now, medical officers in the country will start inoculating their staff in clinics and care homes this week. Their objective is to give some 900, 000 individuals the vaccine over a month using two vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca. Minister Chung Sye-kyuj who is South Korea's top official in health matters backed the vaccine rollout and said they are testing how the vaccines will work before massive vaccinations. 

'Koreans are known for their quickness, and we will live up to our reputation'. It has been pretty difficult for us to achieve the goal, but we are confident that 70% of the South Korean population will be vaccinated before September. '

The Korean government has purchased vaccines, but the administration is slow 

The South Korean government has bought more than 60 million vaccines, however, they won't arrive until late July. South Korea is currently working on its vaccine, but this is taken longer than expected. This is one of the reasons why the government negotiated late for the foreign vaccines. 

It took the Korean government sometimes to negotiate deals for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, however, the media has lashed out at their slow pace calling them incompetent. The president has said he hopes home-grown vaccines will be available before the year runs out.