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South Korean President Moon Jae-in presides over a meeting of five key government officials at the Blue House on Dec. 22. (Yonhap News)

In remarks about the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines on Dec. 22, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he believes that Koreans will be inoculated in good time and that the government has done a good job in preparing a nationwide vaccination plan.

Moon made the comments during his introductory remarks to a meeting on the morning of Nov. 22 to which he invited five key government figures: National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug, Supreme Court Chief Justice Kim Myeong-soo, Constitutional Court President Yoo Nam-seok, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, and National Election Commission Chairwoman Noh Jeong-hee.

“People are really worried about the vaccine these days. But the fact is that the countries where the vaccines were developed provided [the developers] with a lot of financial and administration support, which to a certain extent makes it inevitable that those countries would be inoculated first,” Moon said.

This was the second consecutive day that Moon publicly addressed widespread concern about Korea’s ability to secure supplies of COVID-19 vaccines. On Dec. 21, he stressed that funds from the government’s R&D budget would be allocated for vaccine development. On Dec. 22, he seemed to be asking the public to accept that the vaccine development process entails an inevitable delay in supply acquisition.

“Some newspapers have reported that Moon has rebuked his aides for the delay in vaccine shipments, but those reports aren’t true. The president has talked about the importance of vaccines and treatments from the very beginning,” an official at the Blue House said.

But Moon will find it hard to avoid criticism considering that it wasn’t until Dec. 9 when he publicly asked officials to “keep trying to secure more vaccine doses until we have a surplus, even if that imposes a greater financial burden.” Moon’s remarks imply that Korea’s disease control authorities and the Blue House dawdled on securing vaccines.

In the meeting, Moon also asked the five key officials to join forces on the reform of Korea’s law enforcement bodies. “There have been several conflicts recently about the issue of reforming law enforcement bodies. I think this is a good opportunity to bring about the mature development of a democracy of checks and balances that’s grounded in the spirit of the constitution,” Moon said.

“For the moment, we’re still dealing with the resulting conflicts and with the challenges of integrating those goals into our institutions and bringing them to completion. I hope that all of you, as the heads of constitutional bodies, will take a particular interest in these matters and work together on them.”

By Lee Wan, staff reporter

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