Vaccination centers across Korea will resume first-dose administrations of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine on Saturday, and AstraZeneca’s the following week, health officials said Wednesday.

The distribution of first doses has been suspended for the last three weeks as people with second appointments were given priority amid a tight supply.

According to Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency guidelines, it’s not suitable to postpone the second of the two-dose Pfizer vaccine for any longer than 21 days. For the AstraZeneca vaccine, which also requires two doses, the recommended interval is longer at 12 weeks.

The Minister of Health and Welfare Kwon Deok-cheol told a government COVID-19 response meeting that vaccinations were expected to speed up as supply is restored. Pfizer shipped 438,000 doses of its vaccine to Korea at around 1 a.m. Wednesday, and over 5 million doses of AstraZeneca’s vaccine were set to become available between now and the first week of June, according to the ministry.

Asking for public cooperation with the vaccination campaign, Kwon said even the partial protection of one dose was “powerful,” citing a recent outbreak at a nursing home in Gyeonggi Province as an example. The outbreak spared all of the home’s residents who were vaccinated, only affecting those who were not, he said.

The minister said ever since he received his first AstraZeneca shot in early April, he has been feeling “much safer, and confident.”

“It’s because I know that now my chances of catching COVID-19 are extremely low, and that even if I do catch it, there’s almost a zero possibility of falling seriously sick,” he said.

“For older adults, the benefits of vaccination are immense. Particularly so for people in their 70s and older, whose fatality rate from COVID-19 is greater than 10 percent,” he said.

People aged 60 and above account for more than 95 percent of all COVID-19 deaths here, official data showed.

Nearly half of people aged between 60 and 74, who become eligible for the AstraZeneca vaccination next month, have scheduled an appointment as of Tuesday midnight, according to KDCA updates. The rate is higher for people over 75, 85 percent of whom have booked an appointment for the Pfizer vaccine.

The government aims to deliver one shot to more than 13 million people before the end of June. So far, around 3.74 million people, or 7.3 percent of the population, have received their first dose. This means that starting this weekend, at least 231,000 doses will have to be administered each day to get to that goal. Over the last seven days, an average of 80,031 vaccine doses was given daily.

Son Young-rae, a spokesperson for the Health Ministry, told reporters earlier this week that being on schedule with its 13 million vaccination target “won’t be a problem,” and there might even be “some time to spare.”

Once half of the most vulnerable members of society are vaccinated, social distancing restrictions could be eased in July, Son said. A “maskless Chuseok” could be possible, KDCA deputy director Kwon Jun-wook said earlier, as most adults would be getting at least one shot in the fall.

But a July easing in social distancing “might be too soon,” said Dr. Paik Soon-young, a virologist at Catholic University of Korea. It won’t be until August or September that the AstraZeneca-vaccinated people in their 60s to early 70s can get their second dose.

Infectious disease professor Dr. Kim Woo-joo of Korea University said as vaccinations reach wider populations at an expedited pace, safety protocols needed to be “carefully heeded.”

At some clinics, people younger than 30, who are excluded from AstraZeneca vaccinations here, were mistakenly given the vaccine. An 80-something Alzheimer’s patient was mistakenly inoculated with the Pfizer shot twice in a day.

Kim said as vaccinations pick up, and more clinics around the country are mobilized to deliver the vaccines, health authorities should “step up efforts to avoid such mishaps and negligence.” He added that clinics, too, should be mindful of vaccine mishandling “that can cause the doses to go bad.”

By Kim Arin (arin@heraldcorp.com)