President Moon Jae-in and First Lady Kim Jung-sook received the AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, but accumulated public distrust of vaccination may not vanish quickly, experts point.

A few years ago, a false claim that the measles, mumps, and rubella virus (MMR) vaccine causes autism spread the vaccination fear, pulling down inoculation rate and leading to the resurge of measles. The research paper was withdrawn later but still serves as the basis for avoiding vaccination.

Health experts stressed that Covid-19 vaccines should not follow the example of MMR vaccines. They pointed out that the AstraZeneca vaccine, in particular, should not be used as a political tool, they said.

However, the AstraZeneca vaccine has already been politicized in Korea. People with different political inclinations showed differences in their trust in Covid-19 vaccines developed by different makers.

A Gallup Korea survey from Feb. 23-25 on 1,004 people aged 18 or older showed that 60 percent of progressive respondents trusted AZ’s vaccine, higher than the comparable rates of 43 percent among centrist and 39 percent of conservative respondents.

The receptivity of the Covid-19 vaccine also differed depending on the individuals' political inclinations. In another survey conducted by the Korea Development Institute (KDI) on 2,000 male and female adults, 83 percent of liberal respondents said they would take the vaccine. Only 47 percent of conservative respondents said so, however.

Such different responses seemed to affect the vaccination rate, as shown by the sharply lowered consent rate among older adults aged 65 or older. According to the government’s Covid-19 vaccination response team, out of the total 375,061 people over 65 at nursing homes and workers who help them, 288,365, or 76.9 percent, agreed to get jabs. The agreement rate was far lower than the 93.7 percent among those at the same facilities and aged under 65.

Last Friday, Dr. Song Man-ki, deputy director-general of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) Science Unit, explained the Covid-19 vaccine, appearing at Corona Fighters Live, a weekly YouTube channel of The Korean Doctors' Weekly, a sister newspaper of Korea Biomedical Review.

Covid-19 vaccination strategy goes hand in hand with politics.

"We should be extremely careful in handling controversies and debates over vaccines,” Song said. “However, it is so pitiable some people are staging debates on AstraZeneca’s for political reasons.”

Song said that he was frustrated by the rising controversy about the safety of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The debate over AstraZeneca’s vaccine in Europe was also due to politics, i.e., the conflict between the U.K. and EU over the Brexit disrupted in the form of debate on AZ vaccine. AstraZeneca is a British-Swedish pharmaceutical company that developed a Covid-19 vaccine with Oxford University.

"Prime Minister Boris Johnson cited the AZ vaccine as one of the reasons while self-praising his Brexit decision, saying that the U.K. distributed vaccines far faster than EU countries,” Song said. “On the other hand, other European countries could not receive the AZ vaccine, triggering a backlash. Their political conflict has shifted to vaccines.” 

Germany added to the confusion, reporting, mistakenly, that AZ’s vaccine efficacy among people over 65 was 8 percent while, in fact, 8 percent of people over 65 were supposed to take AZ jabs, Song said. This led some other European countries, including France, to temporarily suspend the injection with AZ vaccines. “Politics and vaccination strategy have come to go hand in hand,” he said.

Song expressed his frustration with the situation, in which the AstraZeneca vaccine has become a tool for political brawls, and it became difficult to restore trust in vaccines.

"If the U.K. accumulates scientific data on the efficacy and preventive effects of the AstraZeneca vaccine, it could lead to a significant increase in public acceptance. However, it seems quite difficult to reverse negative sentiments because there are groups seeking to maintain the controversy,” Song said. “People may not believe even if experts present scientific basis.”

Song cited as an example the enormous efforts scientists have made to dispel rumors about the MMR vaccine and autism. “However, some people won’t believe even in the face of scientific data,” he said.

Scientific data over conspiracy; Covid-19 vaccine’s safety has been proven

Regarding the controversy that the AstraZeneca vaccine induces blood clotting, Song explained that the reported cases were exaggerated by the media that said the vaccine had caused the adverse effects, but they were general blood clotting.

The degree of adverse reactions after vaccination differs among individuals and may vary depending on each country's medical environment, Song said. He pointed out that there had been clinical trials of the same vaccine conducted in Korea and the U.S., but Koreans experienced six times more side effects than Americans. He attributed such a situation to Koreans better access to hospitals and an excellent reporting system.

"It would be unfortunate for people not to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine because those shots have been proven effective in preventing infections in a real-world," Song said."

Song then emphasized the need to refrain from wasting time debating meaningless issues surrounding the Covid-19 vaccine.

He said that it is doubtful when we would form herd immunity if we start debating about the best available vaccines while the U.S. and U.K. began preparing vaccination strategies for the variant strains.

"If Pfizer or Modena starts manufacturing vaccines for Covid-19 variants, the supply to other countries may be delayed, which makes us need to diversify the vaccination strategy," he added.

Song said that the Covid-19 vaccines developed by AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Modena, Janssen, and NovaVax the nation had decided to use for vaccination are all safe and effective, stressing that “it is best to take the shots as soon as possible.”