Residents Who Have Been Vaccinated Remain Infected With COVID-19, South Korea Pushes For Booster Dose Injections

Illustration of the handling of COVID-19 in South Korea. (Wikimedia Commons/Busan Metropolitan City)

JAKARTA - South Korea encouraged its citizens to take COVID-19 booster shots on Wednesday, as more elderly people fell ill and reported infections in individuals who had been vaccinated, pushing serious and critical cases to near-record levels.

Severe coronavirus cases jumped from the mid-300s in October to 460 on Wednesday, official data showed. Of the terminally ill patients, more than 82 percent were aged 60 years and over.

Son Young-rae, a senior health ministry official told a news conference the increase was not yet a threat to the country's health care system, as there are nearly 500 ICU beds available.

He said the speed at which severe cases increased and the size of the total infection, especially among the unvaccinated, were the main points to consider in deciding future treatments for the health care system.

Although South Korea's overall vaccine breakthrough infection rate remains low at 85.5 people per every 100,000 inoculated.

But, it has steadily increased in recent weeks, led by parents, as the protection of the COVID-19 vaccine wanes over time. And, a weaker herd immune system makes them more susceptible to infection.

Of the totally serious and critically ill patients with vaccine breakthrough infections in the past eight weeks, 93 percent were those aged 60 years and over, according to government data.

For information, Ginseng Country has vaccinated 640,232 residents with booster doses, since the program started last month, mainly using vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.

Meanwhile, South Korea began a gradual easing of COVID-19 restrictions this month, having fully vaccinated nearly 90 percent of its adult population, or 77 percent of its 52 million population.

Authorities said a surge-breaker measure would be issued when there is great pressure on hospital beds to treat serious cases, but have not disclosed the exact threshold.

South Korea is known to have reported 2,425 new cases on Tuesday. A total of 385,831 cases of infection have been recorded with 3,012 deaths due to COVID-19 so far.