The Latest: S. Korean-made vaccines roll off production line

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s top infectious disease expert has warned that vaccines will not end the coronavirus pandemic quickly as the country prepared to give its first vaccinations this week.

Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said during a briefing Wednesday it would take a “considerably long time” before the vaccination campaign brings the virus under control.

The country aims to vaccinate more than 70% of its population by November. But a safe return to mask-less normalcy is highly unlikely in 2021, considering various factors including the growing spread of virus variants, said Choi Won Suk, an infectious disease professor at the Korea University Ansan Hospital who joined Jeong at the briefing.

“We are concerned that people might drop their guard as vaccination begins, triggering another massive wave of the virus,” Jeong said.

South Korea on Wednesday began transporting its first available doses of vaccines that rolled off a production line in the southern city of Andong, where local pharmaceutical company SK Bioscience manufactures vaccines developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

The country will kick off its mass immunization campaign on Friday by administering the Astra-Zeneca-Oxford vaccines to residents and employees at long-term care facilities.

Separately, some 55,000 doctors, nurses and other health professionals involved with treating COVID-19 patients will begin receiving shots of vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on Saturday.

___

THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— States are scrambling to catch up after weather disruptions while also gearing up to administer more shots as vaccine supply increases

— Health nominee Becerra says pandemic will be priority but also pledges to...