State public health officials say Iowa’s overall vaccination rate is inching up, but parts of the state are lagging behind. Seventy-one percent of Iowans over the age of 11 have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Ken Sharp of the Iowa Department of Public Health says  about seven-thousand Iowa kids ages 5 to 11 got their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as of Monday

Officials say Iowa received 99-thousand pediatric doses of the Pfizer vaccine in its first shipment, and 24-thousand more have been ordered. Some major pharmacy chains were able to order thousands of additional doses on their own. The number of Covid patients hospitalized in Iowa and the number of Iowans testing positive for the virus has increased since last week. By the middle of THIS week, state officials had confirmed 71-hundred-66 Iowans have died of Covid since the pandemic began.