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South Korean President Moon Jae-in receives AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine at a public health center in Seoul on Tuesday. (Blue House photographers’ pool)

South Korean President Moon Jae-in, 68, and first lady Kim Jung-sook, 67, publicly received the AstraZeneca vaccine for COVID-19 on Tuesday, the day that vaccinations began for Koreans aged 65 and above. The couple was inoculated that morning at a public health center in Seoul. Wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt, Moon pulled up his left shirt sleeve for his vaccination.

While Moon’s inoculation was aimed at preparing him for his attendance of the G7 summit in June, it was also aimed at boosting confidence in the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been clouded by concerns that it might cause blood clots and by doubts about its efficacy for the elderly.

The vaccination of Moon and leaders of countries around the world has been a topic of keen interest. Those leaders have taken various approaches with the vaccinations, depending on their personal style, as well as on the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak and the status of vaccinations in their countries.

This photo released by the Kremlin Sunday shows Russian President Vladimir Putin spending a weekend in Siberia, Russia. (TASS/Yonhap News)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, 69, also received a COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, but he didn’t publish a photo of the vaccination, in contrast with most leaders. The Kremlin explained that, since Putin has already done a lot to promote the vaccines, publicly releasing images of his vaccination wasn’t needed to increase confidence in the vaccine.

Putin would only say he’d received a vaccine made in Russia, without specifying which of those vaccines it was. Russia has developed three COVID-19 vaccines: Sputnik V, EpiVacCorona, and CoviVac. According to the Kremlin, revealing which of the three vaccines that Putin had received would have the undesired effect of lowering confidence in the other two.

Putin sparked controversy when he emphasized the safety of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine shortly after its approval last year without actually getting vaccinated himself.

He explained that a national leader couldn’t take a vaccine whose safety hadn’t been demonstrated, prompting criticism both at home and abroad for his contradictory stance.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson drinks water at a Downing Street press briefing on Tuesday in London, United Kingdom. (Reuters/Yonhap News)

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, 56, received the AstraZeneca vaccine on Friday. He’d been the first world leader to contract COVID-19 in March 2020.

Johnson’s inoculation was largely designed to demonstrate the safety of the vaccine, which had been developed through a partnership between a British pharmaceutical firm and university. He was basically serving as a cheerleader for a domestic vaccine.

Johnson got the jab one day after the European Medicines Agency announced that there was no link between the AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots.

After being inoculated, Johnson said it was “very good, very quick.”

The leaders of other European countries that have temporarily halted administration of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine because of concerns that it might cause blood clots have also jumped on the inoculation bandwagon.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex has received his first dose of the vaccine, while Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have pledged to receive the AstraZeneca vaccine.

In contrast, US President Joe Biden received the US-made Pfizer vaccine on live television on Dec. 21, 2020, while he was still president-elect. The event was scheduled to boost public confidence in the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. The US had begun administrating COVID-19 vaccines ten days earlier, on Dec. 11.

Chinese President Xi Jinping waves hello to people Tuesday during his visit to Sanming, Fujian province, in China. (Xinhua/Yonhap News)

Even though China is producing more vaccines than any other country, Chinese President Xi Jinping has reportedly not been vaccinated yet.

China has developed three COVID-19 vaccines — called Sinovac, Sinopharm, and CanSino — and thus far manufactured 169.4 million doses, accounting for one-third of the global vaccine output. Some say that Xi and other leaders of the Chinese Communist Party should be vaccinated early this year to increase domestic confidence in the vaccines.

A man holds a newspaper following the death of Tanzania's President John Magufuli in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on March 18. (Reuters/Yonhap News)

As president of the East African country of Tanzania, John Magufuli had refused to allow vaccinations in the country, calling COVID-19 “a devil” and claiming that the vaccines represented a Western plot.

On Mar. 17, news broke that Magufuli had died, one year into his second term in office. The Tanzanian government said that Magufuli’s death was the result of heart complications, but the Western media raised suspicions that he’d contracted COVID-19.

Magufuli had been a mainstay on government broadcasts, appearing two or three times a week. But starting last month, his appearances had sharply declined. Rumors swirled that he’d been whisked overseas to receive treatment for a critical case of COVID-19.

Magufuli had claimed that a ginger infusion was helpful for preventing COVID-19. In April 2020, he halted efforts to monitor confirmed cases and fatalities of COVID-19, basically abandoning any effort to combat the outbreak.

By Choi Hyun-june, staff reporter

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