Fear of Delta variant

Speed up vaccination against COVID-19

The health authorities are on alert over the Delta variant of COVID-19 which has spread rapidly to more than 90 countries. The new strain of the coronavirus, found to have originated in India, is much more contagious and expected to become dominant globally.

South Korea has yet to report any mass infections of the Delta variant. However, there is a growing fear that it could hit the country hard anytime soon, just as it is doing in Britain and other European countries as well as the U.S.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) reported 610 new infections, including 576 local cases, Thursday, with the total caseload reaching 153,155. The agency said 2,225 cases in Korea have so far been linked to COVID-19 variants, and of these, 1,886 people were infected with the Alpha variant believed to have originated in Britain. Infections caused by the Delta variant were estimated at 190.

As KDCA Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong said, the Delta variant is in its initial stages of spreading in South Korea. This means the country might have to tighten its quarantine network to nip the new strain in the bud. Particularly, more efforts are needed to block imported cases of the variant as well as to avoid outbreaks in local communities.

First of all, the health authorities should make concerted efforts to speed up the vaccination process to better protect people from the coronavirus, particularly the Delta variant. The Moon Jae-in government has promised to achieve herd immunity here in November by fully vaccinating 70 percent of the country’s 51 million population. Now is the time to keep this promise as early as possible.

Around 30 percent of the population has received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, while 8.5 percent have been fully vaccinated. The government’s vaccination program calls for 36 million people to be given at least one vaccine dose by September. Given the potential risk of the variant, the authorities must try to rapidly increase the inoculation rate.

Another problem is the government’s plan to ease social distancing rules starting next month. Some experts have already pointed out that it is still too early to relax COVID-19 restrictions because the pandemic is showing no signs of abating amid the still low rate of inoculation. Policymakers should pay more heed to concerns about the early relaxation of quarantine guidelines.

If necessary, the government should postpone softening its social distancing rules. There are growing concerns that the pandemic could be resurgent this summer when a large number of people are expected to go on vacation. We should not lower our guard until the virus is defeated.