The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported Wednesday that the nation’s Covid-19 vaccination rate stood at 66.7 percent and rose to 77.7 percent when only people over 18 years of age were counted.
The total number of Koreans who have received the second shot surpassed over 34 million as of midnight Tuesday. As the government is preparing to return to normal early next month when the vaccination rate reaches 70 percent, progress is going smoothly.
Korea has given the first shot to 40,513,091 people – 11,101,432 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 21,426,916 with Pfizer's vaccine, 1,470,906 with Janssen's vaccine, 6,477,060 with Moderna's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 36,777 from the previous day. The figure accounts for 91.6 percent of the population above 18.
Over 70 percent of Koreans are expected to complete vaccination by the end of this month, which the government believes is a precondition for the resumption of pre-pandemic life.
A total of 50,708 teenagers aged 16-17, the age group that began receiving vaccinations Monday, have received their first shot of the Pfizer vaccine. Vaccinations for pregnant women also started on the same day, and 438 people have received their first jab.
The nation has authorized AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Janssen, and Moderna vaccines and began immunizing the public. The Janssen vaccine needs only one shot, but the remaining vaccines require two doses. However, the immunizing power of the Janssen reportedly drops to the single-digit range after six months, showing the need for booster shots.
A total of 6,345 new cases have been reported to the health authorities for suspected adverse reactions after receiving the vaccine between Monday and Tuesday. In addition, over the two days, 12 additional deaths were reported, and the health authorities plan to investigate the causal relationship between vaccination and death.
"We might prepare a vaccination plan of giving booster shots for those who received the Janssen vaccine as early as next week," KDCA Commissioner Jung Eun-kyeong said. "Considering the situation that the breakthrough infection rate of Janssen vaccine receivers is three times higher than others who received different vaccines, we will come up with an additional plan through experts' review next week."
On Tuesday, the country added 1,572 Covid-19 cases, including 1,556 local infections, raising the total caseload to 346,088, according to the KDCA.
The daily cases have risen again despite testing more after the nation hit the record high of 3,273 on Sept. 25. As a result, nine more people died from the virus, raising the death toll to 2,698 with a fatality rate of 0.78 percent.
The highly infectious Delta variant is now the dominant form of the coronavirus, taking up 100 percent of the variants found in 3,245 locally infected Covid-19 patients last week. The number of breakthrough infections came to 16,972, or 0.073 percent of the fully vaccinated populations.
Beginning this week, the restrictions on private gatherings have been lifted to allow up to eight people in Seoul and its surrounding areas to meet, provided that four of them are fully vaccinated. A maximum of 10 people, including six fully vaccinated, are allowed to gather in other regions.
The eased rules will be in effect until the end of this month in what the authorities said would be the last adjustment of social distancing, as the country is scheduled to introduce the "living-with-covid" system.