Korea to vaccinate younger generations from July

The government said that it would give Covid-19 vaccines to people in their 50s from late July and those aged 18-49 years old from mid-August.

Among them, the health authorities will prioritize College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) takers, teachers at daycare centers, kindergartens, and elementary, middle, and high schools over 30 years old, and those aged 50 to 59 years. The remaining 18-49 year-olds will receive the vaccine in order of reservation starting in August, regardless of age.

Health officials also said they would combine AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines in two-shot regimens among some groups from next month to boost efficacy.

The measure came in response to the temporary imbalance between the supply and demand of AstraZeneca's vaccine. The government originally planned to use 835,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, scheduled to be supplied at the end of this month through COVAX Facility, an international project for joint purchase of vaccines, for the second vaccination.

However, the COVAX changed the supply schedule to after July, forcing the government to administer Pfizer's second dose to people who received AstraZeneca's vaccine as their first dose after consulting with experts.

Those eligible for the mix-and-match Covid-19 vaccines total about 760,000 people, including visiting care workers over the age of 30, healthcare workers at clinic-level medical institutions and pharmacies, chronic kidney disease patients, and essential social workers, such as police officers, firefighters, and coast guards.

They can receive the Pfizer vaccine at the inoculation institution on a pre-determined date without changing their appointment.

Citing foreign research, health authorities said there had been no safety issue with people receiving the mix-and-match vaccine. Some studies suggested that the formula could create higher antibody levels than two doses of a single vaccine.

"A study in Spain showed that citizens who received the AstraZeneca's vaccine as the first dose and Pfizer's vaccine as the second dose, the neutralizing antibody was seven times higher, and the binding antibody was 30~40 times higher than when the patient received the first jab of AstraZeneca's vaccine," the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KCDA) said. "There were also no serious adverse reactions observed."

The authorities, however, said they could change reservations if recipients want to receive an AstraZeneca vaccine as their second jab.

The government's goal is to complete the first jab of the vaccine for 36 million people, 70 percent of the population, by September. To achieve such a goal, authorities will have to vaccinate 22 million people with the first dose of the vaccine in the third quarter.

Korea has vaccinated 13,790,841 people – 9,377,084 with the AstraZeneca vaccine, 3,372,245 with Pfizer's vaccine, and 1,041,512 with Janssen's vaccine – with the first shot of the vaccine up 540,248 from the previous day. The figure accounts for 26.7 percent of the country's population.

On Thursday, the KDCA confirmed 540 new virus cases, including 523 local infections, raising the cumulative caseload to 149,731.

One more person died of Covid-19, raising the death toll to 1,994 with a fatality rate of 1.33 percent. A total of 141,029 people have returned to their daily life after full recovery, up 591 from the previous day. The country's total test number has surpassed 10 million, accounting for about a fifth of the country's population. It has carried out 10,257,836 tests since Jan. 3 last year.

Health authorities plan to implement a revamped social distancing scheme next month after extending the current distancing rules until July 4.

The greater Seoul area, Daegu and Jeju Island are under Level 2 distancing, the third-highest in the country's five-tier system. Other regions are under Level 1.5 with nationwide restrictions on private gatherings of five or more people.