Vaccination to Start Nationwide at 9 a.m. Today: All "No. 1"

[경향신문]

Vaccine Delivery Vehicle Sealed: On February 25, a day before the launch of COVID-19 vaccination, a refrigerated truck carrying the AstraZeneca vaccine to the Gwangsan-gu Public Health Center in Gwangju is sealed. Yonhap News

COVID-19 vaccination will begin simultaneously at 9 a.m. February 26 in public health centers and care hospitals nationwide. A total of 5,266 patients and staff under the age of 65 at care hospitals and facilities will be the first to receive the vaccine. Authorities decided to put more emphasis on the “first day” of inoculation rather than put the spotlight on any one person as the first to receive the vaccine.

At 5:50 a.m. February 25, 56 refrigerated trucks carrying a total of 163,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine departed from the logistics center in Icheon-si, Gyeonggi and headed to 292 care hospitals and 257 public health centers nationwide. The vaccines delivered to the public health centers will be administered to patients and staff at care facilities.

On the first day, the vaccine will be administered at 213 care facilities. The 5,266 people, who will first receive the vaccine, include those who will personally visit the public health centers for the vaccination as well as the medical staff whom the authorities will visit to administer the vaccine on site. The vaccine delivered to care hospitals will then be administered within 5 days after the delivery according to the individual plans designed by each hospital. The number of people receiving the vaccine on the first day will be determined by the speed of vaccination at the care hospitals.

Disease control authorities decided not to single out “the first person” to receive the vaccine, given that vaccination will begin simultaneously nationwide. Since inoculation will begin in all regions among patients and staff under the age of 65 at care hospitals and facilities, the first person to receive the vaccine in each region is likely to fit a similar description.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency announced, “The patients and staff under the age of 65 at care hospitals and facilities nationwide will begin receiving the vaccine at the same time, so they are all the first to be inoculated.”

This day, public health centers were busy making last minute preparations for vaccination. A refrigerated truck carrying 1,000 doses of the vaccine was escorted by the military and police and arrived at the Gweonseon-gu Public Health Center in Suwon, Gyeonggi at 8:50 a.m. this morning. The staff in charge of transportation and the official overseeing vaccination at the public health center moved the boxes of vaccines to the room where the vaccine was to be administered, carefully checked the condition of the vaccines for over ten minutes, and then stored them in a separate refrigerator. The official at the center said, “We inspected the vials and there were none that were broken or damaged.”

Some unexpected situations occurred during transportation. Authorities detected a problem in a refrigerated truck twenty minutes after it departed from the Icheon logistics center for Jeju at 6:22 p.m. the previous day. At the time, 3,900 doses of the vaccine was loaded on the truck, but the integrated control system discovered that the vaccine was being transported at a temperature (1.5 degrees) lower than the adequate temperature of 2-8 degrees Celsius. Authorities sent another truck loaded with new vaccines to replace the previous one and the vaccines arrived in Jeju on time.

Authorities said that there was no problem in the quality of the vaccines that they recovered. Yang Dong-gyo, head of resource management at the COVID-19 Vaccination Response Team said, “We believe there was a slight problem in the process of stabilizing the refrigerant,” and explained, “We plan to use the vaccines since we believe there is no problem in using them.”

The vaccine is expected to be administered in a number of public health centers and care hospitals even over the weekend (Feb. 27-28) and the March 1 holiday. An official from the Disease Control and Prevention Agency said, “A large number of public health centers submitted plans to administer the vaccine over the weekend.”

Jung Eun-kyeong, head of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said, “The vaccines administered this time were either approved after a 3-step verification process by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety or approved after verification of safety and effectiveness by the World Health Organization (WHO). And many people around the world have already received the vaccine.” She added, “We ask the public to follow the prevention guidelines even while vaccination is in process.”