The media spokesperson for the Ministry of Education Ahmed Al-Masaafeh said Monday that the COVID-19 infection rate among school students reached five per thousand last week.

Regarding the number of school students who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, Masaafeh said that around 208,000 public school students aged 12 and below received the first dose of the vaccine, while 156,000 received the second dose among the same age group.

As for the third dose, a total of 378 of the same age group received it.

He explained that the percentage of teachers who received the coronavirus vaccine reached 98.6 percent.

Earlier, the Adviser to the Prime Minister for Health Affairs, responsible for the coronavirus file, Adel Belbisi, had previously confirmed that the decision to vaccinate children between 5-11 years is “not mandatory” indicating that parents' written consent is needed to vaccinate their children.

In February, the government announced that schools and classrooms will no longer switch to online learning in case of a 10 percent infection rate. Infected students will only quarantine for five days.