South Korea coronavirus: PM aims for ‘herd immunity by autumn’

South Korea will achieve herd immunity from Covid-19 by the autumn, its prime minister has told the BBC, despite a later start to its vaccination programme.

The country was one of the first hit by the pandemic last year and became a role model for its mass testing and aggressive contact tracing measures.

But vaccinations have been much slower.

Health officials will start inoculating medical staff in hospitals and care homes later this week.

The aim is to give some 800,000 people the jab over the next month using vaccines produced by AstraZeneca and Pfizer-BioNTech.

In an interview one year since he became the country's coronavirus figurehead, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun defended the later rollout and said it allowed South Korean officials to see how the vaccine had fared elsewhere.

"You know that Koreans are the master of speed," – said Mr Chung.

"It's not an easy goal to achieve but we aim to complete the first set of vaccinations on 70% of our population by the end of the third quarter in September. I believe it's possible."

The government has procured more than enough vaccine for the country's 55 million people, but most of these supplies are not expected to arrive until around July. That gives health workers just a few months to meet the government's deadline.

Seoul had hoped to have its own vaccine ready by the end of this year – but that is now looking unlikely. The hope of a "home-grown" jab is thought to be part of the reason the government took its time to negotiate with vaccine companies for supplies.

It eventually secured contracts with Pfizer and Moderna at the end of January but not before domestic media had lambasted its approach as too relaxed.

President Moon Jae-in told me at his New Year press conference that he did not regret taking the time to get this right.