The nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive for children ages 5 - 11 gets underway Tuesday, nine days after the Health Ministry approved the vaccine for this age group.

In the first 24 hours after the country’s four health care providers began scheduling appointments for children, Sunday evening, about 25,000 slots were filled. That represents 2.5% of the 1 million children in this age group who are eligible to receive the vaccine now (in addition to about 224,000 children who have recovered from a coronavirus infection).

The vaccine drive comes as the reproduction or R number, which measures how many people each infected person passes the virus on to, rose to 1.04. A number greater than 1 means the decline in the spread of infection has been halted.