The medical community criticized the government for inconsistent Covid-19 vaccination policy, particularly after the authorities reversed the previous position and allowed younger people to get AstraZeneca’s shots.
On Tuesday, the Korean Medical Association’s Covid-19 response committee released a statement to warn against expanding the age group for the AZ vaccine into younger groups.
“We are seriously concerned about the difference between the recommended age of vaccination in absolute standards and the age at which only those who wish to receive vaccination are given the opportunity,” the KMA’s Covid-19 response committee said in the statement.
Citing the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency’s (KDCA) weekly report on adverse reactions after Covid-19 vaccination, the KMA’s committee said the second dose of the AZ shot in people aged less than 50 pose a relatively high risk of vaccine-related adverse events, compared to the preventive effect.
Thus, it will be “dangerous” to vaccinate them with the AZ vaccine first, it said.
The committee also cited a paper in the Lancet which confirmed that the ratio of adverse reactions to the vaccination rate was significantly higher in people aged 55 or younger than senior groups.
“We have to discuss further the need to vaccinate the population under the age of 50 who are at a higher potential risk,” it said.
Expressing grave concern about inoculating a broader population with the AZ shot, the committee urged the government to communicate better with the KMA for professional advice and come up with suitable recommendations for vaccination.
The Korean Physicians’ Association (KPA) also rapped the health authorities’ frequent changes in vaccination guidelines caused by the shortage of vaccines, saying such policy created confusion in clinical scenes.
The KPA pointed out that Korea ranked the lowest among 38 OECD members in the Covid-19 vaccination rate. The nation was the only OECD country that failed to reach the world’s average vaccination rate.
“While Korea can give 1 million shots a day, the vaccination rate is still low. This is because vaccines are in shortage,” the KPA said in a statement.
An abrupt shift in vaccination guidelines caused by external factors has made doctors and the general public lose trust in the government, the association went on to say.
The KPA lambasted the government mainly for pushing down the threshold age from 50 to 30 to allow the AZ shot for younger people in just a month after restricting the age limit to 50 due to a fatal risk of blood clots in the AZ vaccine.
The group of internal medicine doctors said it has repeatedly demanded the government correct numerous problems such as the closedness of the vaccination program, no-show issues over left-over vaccines, and discrimination against the seniors who are relatively inaccessible to the IT-based inoculation system.
However, the government still maintains the inconvenient system saying it should adhere to principles, the KPA said. “Because of this, more leftover vaccines are thrown away, and clinicians are overwhelmed by extreme fatigue,” it added.
Frequent changes in vaccination guidelines messed up individuals’ vaccination schedules. After vaccination reservations were forcefully set even on holidays, clinics became too busy receiving flooding phone calls from patients, the KPA said.
In addition, physicians were significantly hurt by recent news reports about some errors in vaccination because the reports sounded as if only the medical institutions were responsible for vaccination-related risks, it said.
The KPA urged the government to sincerely communicate with the medical community and set a Covid-19 vaccination policy based on consistent principles.