South Korea finally began its Covid-19 inoculations in late February. The controversy was brewing as South Korea had not started its vaccinations compared to other developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom which started vaccinations in early December. Korea has signed contracts to secure enough vaccines for 79 million people which will cover more than the entire South Korean population. These vaccine doses come from the WHO's global vaccine COVAX project and individual contracts with five pharmaceutical companies.

In an interesting development, health authorities announced that hospital staff can maximize the number of doses per vaccine vial by using low dead space (LDS) syringes. LDS syringes are generally not widely used except in niche medical specialties such as fertility treatments where it is costly to waste even a minimal number of drugs. According to Bloomberg, “When a medication or vaccine is injected, some amount of it can linger in the syringe in what’s known as the “dead space” between the plunger and needle.” This facet of the syringe’s design allows them to squeeze out six doses from a Pfizer vial instead of five and 12 doses from an AstraZeneca vial instead of 10.
 

As for the latest news on infections nationwide, there were 463 new cases on March 18th. South Korea has a total of 97,757 infections so far and as a result, the health authorities have decided to extend social distancing guidelines until March 28th where the greater Seoul area will be under Level 2 social distancing while the rest of the country will remain under level 1.5.

While the need for social distancing is understood by the public, the government needs to come up with contingency plans to help small businesses and independent contractors who have been hurt financially by the economic impacts of COVID-19. While there have been three rounds of payments to those whose financial status got seriously affected by Covid-19, there are still those who are suffering greatly under the social distancing guidelines as businesses must close by 10 PM and restaurants cannot accept tables with more than four people. Therefore, the government must pass the next round of payments as soon as possible.

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