South Korea to Receive 700,000 Doses of the Coronavirus Vaccine from Israel

It was recently confirmed by South Korea that it is going to receive no less than 700,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine from the State of Israel. The jabs of the Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine will be provided to South Korea on a loan, sometime around this week. This is being done to speed up the process of immunization, soon after a rise in infections was reported in its capital, Seoul. 

Over 1,000 new coronavirus cases emerged on Tuesday, which is the highest number since December, and significantly larger than the number reported on Monday. The government health officials from South Korea had revealed that they had recorded only 746 cases the previous day. 

As per the vaccine swap agreement made between the two countries, South Korea will be returning the same number of doses that it receives from Pfizer to Israel, in the months of September and October. The former has already placed an order for the jabs. 

The vaccines that were previously received by South Korea, were successfully and quickly distributed. However, it has been struggling to obtain additional jabs as supplies across the globe are quite tight at the moment, especially in the continent of Asia. 

The Prime Minister of Israel, Naftali Bennett, went on to add that the vaccines to be given to South Korea, were loaded onto a plane only hours after the deal was announced. According to him, this deal between the two countries is a win-win situation, which will benefit both of them and allow them to beat the coronavirus pandemic. 

The State of Israel has managed a stellar roll-out and has successfully administered the two jabs to no less than 55% of its total population. However, now the turnout has somewhat plateaued. 

The Director of the Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), Jeong Eun-kyeong, stated that this agreement will help South Korea speed up its vaccination campaign. This includes administering the jab to employees in those sectors that have recorded a high amount of contact between people. 

In South Korea, the decision regarding who receives these vaccines has been left up to the local authorities. According to the director, priority may be given to delivery workers, retail employees, as well as street cleaners. 

Just last week, authorities in South Korea said that they are looking forward to achieving herd immunity before November of this year. They hope to inoculate around 70% of the total population with at least a single dose of the vaccine. 

In other news, the Health Ministry in Israel revealed that it had recorded 501 new cases of the coronavirus in the country on Monday. This is a 50% increase, as compared to the previous day. The officials from the ministry added that this is the highest number to have been recorded since the month of March. On the 30th of March, 571 people had tested positive for the deadly disease. 

From the new infections recorded on Monday, 42% of the people had been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. This caused much concern, as the highly infectious Delta variant has now contributed to over 90% of the new cases in Israel.