With the government's vaccine rollout program gaining speed in the past few days, adverse cases related to inoculation have also been increasing.
According to the Covid-19 Vaccination Response Promotion Team, the government has confirmed 2,222 new adverse cases reported after vaccination on Monday and Tuesday.
Of the 2,222 cases, the health authorities have confirmed 10 additional deaths – nine deaths of those who received Pfizer vaccines and one who got the AstraZeneca shot – although no direct relationship with vaccination has been confirmed.
Since Feb. 26, when Korea started vaccination, the government had confirmed a cumulative total of 29,850 suspected adverse reaction reports. The figure accounts for 0.35 percent of the 8,556,522 people who either received the first jab of the vaccine or had completed the inoculation process as of Wednesday.
Regarding vaccine type, 22,196 adverse reports came from AstraZeneca jab recipients, and 7,654 reports came from Pfizer shot receivers.
The government's inoculation program is progressing smoothly, with the cumulative number of people who received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine exceeding 6 million on Wednesday.
Korea has vaccinated 6,358,512 people – 4,017,845 with the AstraZeneca vaccine and 2,340,667 with Pfizer's vaccine – up a drastic 591,322 from the previous day. The figure accounts for 12.4 percent of the country's population.
During a daily task force meeting, Minister of Health and Welfare Kwon Deok-cheol stressed that June is a very important month to set Korea on a path to reopening.
"The government plans to inoculate an additional 8 million people with the first shot of the vaccine this month alone, which accounts for more than a quarter of the total population," Kwon said. "If we carry out vaccinations as planned, Korea will become safer from the threat of Covid-19 virus and will take a step forward to recovering from daily life before the epidemic."
On Wednesday, Korea confirmed 677 new cases, including 654 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 141,476.
The recent caseload, which has been staying in the 400 person range for the past three days, has shot up on Wednesday due to continued sporadic cluster infections from schools, workplaces, bars, and hospitals.
With the summer season approaching, the KCDA also plans to implement a separate social distancing measure for beaches and accept reservations from people planning trips to the beach.
Starting July, the country will operate a three-level alert system -- green, yellow, and red -- to warn visitors of congestion at beaches. Authorities will also monitor visitors' temperatures via a special sticker and provide a wristband for each day of the week after checking their temperatures.
Two more people died of the Covid-19, raising the death toll to 1,965 with a fatality rate of 1.39 percent. A total of 132,068 people have returned to their daily life after complete recovery, up 605 from the previous day. The country has carried out 9,834,350 tests since Jan. 3 last year.