오후 9시까지 전국서 2천64명 확진…10일 2천400명 안팎 예상

We start with the COVID-19 situation in South Korea.
The country is seeing a surge in the number of daily infections.
The daily caseload for Wednesday has already raced past 2-thousand.

What's also worrying is the number of breakthrough cases we've seen in the past few weeks.
Regardless, health authorities have have maintained a firm stance insisting that getting vaccinated is key to fighting off the virus.

To bring us the latest, we have Shin Ye-eun in studio for us. Hi, Ye-eun.

Good morning.

Ye-eun, let's start off with the number of daily cases we're expecting for today. As Mark said, we're expecting to see quite a jump from the day before?

You're absolutely right.
We're expecting numbers to hover near the 24-hundred range.
Which is a big jump from the day before, when the daily tally was in the 17-hundreds.
Up until 9 pm yesterday, 2-thousand 64 people were confirmed as having the virus.
Authorities had specifically pointed out Wednesday as a key date that could hint at how much the virus may have spread... over the past two weekends.
Many people gathered during Halloween... and also this past Saturday and Sunday,... which was the first weekend of eased restrictions... on social gatherings and business operations.
And next Tuesday authorities are set to reveal new criteria to determine which situations put the country at risk... to the extent that they may need to halt eased restrictions.
This criteria will include when to impose a "circuit breaker",... a.k.a an emergency plan that could bring back previous virus prevention measures.

We've also seen the number of breakthrough cases rise in Korea. But officials say this is down to the fact that more people are now fully vaccinated.

Yes, authorities said with higher vaccination rates, the percentage of people who have been fully vaccinated and caught COVID-19 also went up.
South Korea's full vaccination rate is getting closer to the 80 percent mark.
On Tuesday, the country finished fully vaccinating 76-point-9 percent of the population.
And as you mentioned, we've traced back a big proportion of new infections in the last two weeks of October to those who have been fully vaccinated.
Around 48 percent of all infections during that time were breakthrough cases.
To that, authorities said they were mostly among the elderly who had received vaccinations in the first half of this year.
Take a listen.

First, one thing should be clear. Those who haven't been vaccinated are at a much higher risk of getting infected than those who have been. Another thing is that most people over the age of 60 were vaccinated early this year. As the effectiveness of the vaccine decreases with time, they are more likely to get infected.

To solve this issue, the country has been administering booster shots.

The United States has also actively pushed for booster shots. Who is eligible for an extra jab, there?

Senior citizens 65 and up are eligible.
An advisory board of outside experts to the FDA recommended booster shots on an emergency basis for this age group.
But we're expecting to see more people become eligible.
On Tuesday, local time, the CEO of Pfizer said he expected effectiveness of booster shots to last for a year.
He further explained that there was a possibility that people may have to get booster shots every year.
The New York Times reported that Pfizer asked federal regulators on the same day to expand authorization of their booster shots to include all adults.
They added, the FDA is most likely to grant the request before Thanksgiving...which would mean adults fully vaccinated with Pfizer, Moderna or Janssen shots would be newly eligible.

While we're speaking of vaccinations, the WHO is warning that many countries are running low on syringes...

That's right. The WHO said there might be a shortage of one to TWO billion needles needed for COVID-19 vaccinations next year.
Around 6-point-8 billion vaccinations have been administered so far around the world, according to a WHO senior advisor.
Which is double the number of routine vaccines...and much more than the world's total manufacturing capacity of 6 billion immunization syringes.
So now more than ever, we need factories to produce enough supplies for shots to continue.

Thank you, Ye-eun. We'll see you again on Thursday.

#Health_authorities #COVID19 #Infection

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2021-11-10, 08:00 (KST)

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