On June 15, the number of people who received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in South Korea surpassed 13 million. Authorities achieved the goal to administer at least one dose of the vaccine to 13 million people in the first half of the year more than two weeks ahead of schedule. They successfully raised the rate of people who received at least one shot to 25.3% of the population. It took just 109 days since the nation began rolling out vaccines on February 26.

This day, the COVID-19 vaccination response team announced, “As of 2:30 p.m. 13,000,497 people have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in Korea.” The government had originally set the goal of administering the first shots to 13 million by the end of this month, but due to smooth supply of vaccines, authorities raised the vaccination goal for the first half of the year to “13 million plus.”

Disease control authorities had focused on inoculating high-risk groups, such as the elderly, for the first three months since they started rolling out vaccines. Slightly over four million people received at least one vaccine shot by May 26. But since May 27, over 13,000 hospitals and clinics nationwide have been inoculating over 500,000 people a day for nearly twenty days now, allowing the nation to achieve the initial target earlier than scheduled.

The active participation of the people also accelerated vaccination. The vaccination reservation rate was 80.7% among senior citizens aged 60-74, who were the main targets of inoculation in the second quarter, exceeding the initial goal of 70-80%. The reservations for 900,000 doses of the Janssen vaccine, set aside for members of the reserve forces and civil defense aged 30 and older were fully booked in less than a day. Kwon Deok-cheol (minister of health and welfare), first assistant director of the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters said, “It is a meaningful result made possible by the wishes of the people to protect themselves, their families, and all of us from COVID-19 and to quickly restore our daily lives.”

The rate at which authorities are administering the vaccines does not fall behind when compared with major advanced countries. It only took 109 days to administer at least one dose of the vaccine to 25% of the national population, which was 10-20 days faster than France (130 days), Canada (128 days), and Germany (123 days). The speed is similar to the U.S. (100 days), seen as a model country when it comes to the vaccine rollout. Japan, which began rolling out vaccines ten days before South Korea, has currently administered at least one shot to 13.9% of the population.

However, since the vaccine rollout started nearly two months later than the U.S. and European countries, our vaccination rate is still relatively low. So far, Canada (64.7%), Israel (63.3%) and the United Kingdom (61.21%) have administered at least one dose of the vaccine to over 60% of their population. Nearly half of the member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), such as the United States (51.98%), Germany (47.75%), and France (44.8%) have administered at least one shot to over 40% of their population.

Experts point out that the people must not ease preventive measures just because the vaccination rate is rising. In the case of Chile, the country has administered at least one shot to 60.75% of its population so far, but the number of new daily COVID-19 cases that was around a thousand before the vaccine rollout currently surpasses 7,000. This was because Chile resumed the operation of public facilities and eased travel restrictions simultaneously when they began administering the vaccines. In the case of Israel, which ended lock down only after more than 50% of the population had received at least one dose of the vaccine, authorities are confirming less than 20 cases of COVID-19 a day, a drastic drop from the previous 8,000 cases.

The spread of highly contagious strains of the virus is another risk factor. In the U.K., where authorities confirmed more than 60,000 cases of COVID-19 a day, the number fell to around 2,000 as more people received the vaccine. But recently, due to the national outbreak of the delta variant (first detected in India), which is known to be more contagious than previous variants, the number of cases has resurged to over 6,000 a day.