4 Months behind Major Countries, Vaccines Should Be Taken as Soon as Possible

The United States. has been vaccinated for COVID-19 since yesterday. The company that transported the Pfizer vaccine produced in the U.S. was thrilled, calling it a historic day. “Today, we’re not hauling freight, we’re delivering hope,” the company said. Earlier on Dec. 8, the United Kingdom. became the first country in the world to be administer the Pfizer vaccine, and Canada also received the first delivery of the Pfizer vaccine, which will be administered sometime this week. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proudly posted a picture of the vaccine on his Twitter account.

The U.S. has the most severe case of COVID-19 of any country in the world, with 16 million people infected and 300,000 deaths. Accordingly, the government aims to secure vaccines by March next year so that 100 million people, or one-third of 330 million Americans, can be vaccinated, and 75 to 80% of the population can be immunized by May or June. The same goes for China and Russia, which have begun developing their own vaccines. The emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine is moving fast enough to be approved by a total of seven countries, including the U.K., the U.S. and Canada, as well as Mexico.

South Korea is said to be bringing in a vaccine next February or March, but public anxiety is growing as it is still unclear. Lee Nak-yeon, chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, said, “We are trying to start vaccinating before March next year,” but we don’t know what has gone wrong until now given that the volume of vaccines secured is far smaller than that of other advanced countries and the timing of the vaccination is slow. If the government, which bragged about its quarantine while countries around the world devoted all of its efforts to secure a COVID-19 vaccine, has been negligent in securing the vaccines, it should be held accountable.

Even now, the government must mobilize all of its capabilities to accelerate the vaccine import schedule as much as possible. According to the current plan, Korea will not be immune until the end of next year. As we have experienced in the past 10 months, there is no way to calculate the loss to the national economy if the COVID-19 trend continues next year. The economic growth rate, which once boasted a global recovery, is also likely to decline. Unless the serum treatment developed by Korea is commercialized as soon as possible, the only answer to the early end of COVID-19 will be vaccination.