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After receiving a vaccine, people sit in a waiting area in a COVID-19 vaccination center in Seoul as they monitor for adverse reactions Wednesday. (Yonhap News)

South Korea’s disease control authorities have announced that COVID-19 vaccines have prevented 1,383 severe cases of COVID-19 and reduced the number of deaths by 363 among the unvaccinated.

On Wednesday, the Central Disease Control Headquarters (CDCH) presented an analysis on the number of people who were prevented from becoming severely ill or dying after contracting COVID-19 on account of vaccines. The results of an analysis of the accumulated 136,505 COVID-19 patients over the age of 18 who were tracked and observed for 23 weeks — starting from Apr. 3, when the first wave of fully vaccinated people began to emerge following the start of vaccinations on Feb. 26, to Sept. 4 — showed that vaccinations were able to reduce the number of severe cases by 1,383 and deaths by 363.

While the authorities estimated that the number of unvaccinated people who would become seriously ill or die would equal 4,591 and 841 people, respectively, only 3,208 suffered severe symptoms, while just 478 died.

The expected number of seriously ill people and deaths was found by multiplying the number of COVID-19 patients in a given week by the average rate of severe cases and death by age among unvaccinated patients. Lee Sang-won, director of the CDCH epidemiological analysis team, said, “We believe that there was an even greater effect [by the vaccines] because the data only shows the degree to which severe cases were reduced among the patients.”

As of midnight on Wednesday, 78.1% (40,125,204) of South Korea’s population have received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 60.8% have completed their vaccinations. A total of around 450,000 people aged 16 to 17 (50.2% of that population) have made appointments for their vaccinations since the government began accepting reservations on Oct. 5.

By Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporter

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