S.Korea's vaccination drive picks up speed, little slow down in new infections

SEOUL: South Korea injected 857,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses on Monday, setting a daily record in its inoculation drive that took its vaccination rate to 16.4% for a first dose, data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) showed.

Hitherto, a slow vaccine rollout due to global shortages and shipment delays had complicated South Korea's efforts to subdue latest wave of infections, after the country won plaudits last year for using aggressive and high-tech contact tracing to quickly tamp down on outbreaks. But with the inoculation drive ramping up, South Korea said last week that it expects to meet its vaccination target for the first half of the year by inoculating up to 14 million people ahead of schedule.