Vaccination to End COVID-19

                                                                                          written by 10808 Park Su ji

In December 2019, the existence of a contagious virus named corona was revealed to the world, and we’ve been living with it for over a year. “Social distancing” makes people’s physical/mental distance keep away from each other, constraining everyday life. Vaccines are developed and these are the hope to overcome the pandemic.

What is AstraZeneca?

AstraZeneca is a type of virus vector vaccine, which is a kind of vaccine that puts the coronavirus gene into a less-harmful virus and injects into the human body. Its prevention rate is 70.4%, the number of injections is two times, and the price is 3000 won to 5000 won for each dose given.

 Distribution of Vaccine

On February 26th, about a year and a month after the first COVID-19 confirmed case in South Korea, the South Korean government started vaccination with AstraZeneca. When the first inoculation schedule was announced, there wasn’t enough data to prove that AstraZeneca works for elderly. So the government limited the age of inoculation, and announced its intention to inoculate elder people after confirming the following investigation result. 

 They verified it works well enough to the elderly and expanded the age of inoculation to over 65 on March 13th.

 However, the controversy that AstraZeneca causes the side effect of clotting the blood in young people. As anxiety increases, several countries such as France, Australia, and the Philippines have taken action to limit the age of vaccination or to stop it for all ages. Also the Korean domestic health authorities announced that they exclude people under the age of 30 from being inoculated with AstraZeneca.