If you’ve spent time hiking in the Korean mountains, you know they can be more treacherous than they look. The trail gives way to open granite slabs, or clings to an unexpected cliff edge, or there’s a rope you need to pull yourself up by, and a chasm waiting below if your grip fails.
But in my experience, these visible danger spots aren’t where you get hurt. The twisted ankles and surprise tumbles come on the way down, at the end, when your legs are shaky and your mind has wandered from the trail to the cool drink you’ll have when you reach the inevitable country restaurants at the bottom of the mountain. The end of the trail stretches out longer than you thought it would. You see a drink machine and think you must be almost done, but the drink machine won’t take your money, and the trail veers unexpectedly into a boulder-strewn riverbed. The packs of overdressed hikers you passed on the way up seem to have disappeared. You start to wonder if you’re even on the right path. You look around for shortcuts.
This is where we are now with coronavirus in Korea. The sense of impending crisis is long gone. We know the end is near, but we’re not sure how long it will be until we get there, and we’re tired. We’re all going to get vaccinated sooner or later, but we hoped it was sooner, and it’s later. We’ve watched our friends and family get vaccinated in the US or elsewhere, watch as life back home has started getting back to normal — a normal, it should be noted, that looks a lot like how things have been pretty much all along in Korea, but still.
It’s easy to get frustrated under the circumstances. As far as vaccines go, the short-lived program to give leftover AstraZeneca doses to people under 60 felt especially demoralizing. It was never more than marginal — the no-show rate is just 2% — and the rollout of the Naver and Kakao reservation platforms was a technical feat, but it still felt like a bait and switch. It’s the broken drink machine before the boulder field.
But the trail does have an end. Teachers and high school seniors will be vaccinated during the summer break in July. A timetable for people under 60 is supposed to be announced in the third week of June, just a couple of weeks away. Herd immunity by November is still the goal.
When you’re in that boulder field, tired and thirsty, there’s nothing to do but keep moving and stay cautious. That’s where we are, and that’s what we need to do.
Also published on Medium.