COVID-19 deaths will reduce dramatically, say authorities

“Deaths by COVID-19 will be very rare beyond July,” announced Korean public health authorities. As 95% of COVID-19 related deaths have come from the old population, the authorities expect that the death risk will dramatically go down once vaccinations on the elderly are completed by June. The task will be to encourage vaccination of the senior people, of which reservation rates are merely 50%.

“Once the vaccinations are completed, we no longer need to worry COVID-19 infection and high death rates of elderly populations,” explained Sohn Young-rae, the head of the Social Strategy Team at the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters. “There were no infections at all among the 203 patients who were vaccinated in the recent mass infection case at a nursing hospital in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province,” he emphasized. “There are other similar cases that show only people who have not been vaccinated were infected.” 　

The Korean government is planning to relieve public health measures on social distancing in July. “Easing social distancing will not be easy, however, if vaccine reservation rates for those aged 60 to 74 continue to stay at around 49.5%,” experts pointed out.


Sung-Gyu Kim sunggyu@donga.com