South Korea commenced the nationwide Covid-19 vaccination of people aged 65 and above at nursing homes and hospitals on Tuesday. It covers 370,000 inpatients in the age group, caretakers, and medical staff at such facilities are scheduled to be inoculated in the coming weeks.
The second round of the country's vaccine rollout came after the government decided to expand the vaccination program based on new overseas studies showing the effectiveness of the vaccine for the age group. reported Yonhap News. With the vaccination that began earlier in the day, nearly 206,000 people at 1,651 hospitals are eligible for their first shots of AstraZeneca's vaccine.
According to a government study, nearly 1,55,000 of those eligible for the second round of the country's vaccination program agreed to receive the shot as of Monday. Since South Korea started vaccinations on February 26, around 1.3 percent of the country's 51.6 million population have received their first shots.
Notably, the country has secured sufficient coronavirus vaccines to inoculate 79 million people, higher than its population of 51.6 million, with a goal to achieve mass immunity by November. The country has reported 346 more cases of COVID-19 as of midnight Monday compared to 24 hours ago, raising the total number of infections to 99,421 so far.
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