South Korea kicked off its nationwide COVID-19 vaccination program about 13 months after reporting its first coronavirus case. 

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA), the first inoculations will begin at 9 a.m. on Friday at one-thousand-915 nursing homes and public health centers across the country with the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The first batch, enough for 785-thousand people, was produced by SK Bioscience at a local plant in Andong under a partnership contract with the pharmaceutical company. 

About 310-thousand patients and workers at nursing homes aged under 65 are eligible for the first round of shots, with 93-point-seven percent of them agreeing to take them. 

The government decided not to name the first person to get the shot, with about five-thousand-260 people set to receive the vaccine on Friday. 

Through the program, South Korea aims to immunize more than 70 percent of the population, or up to 36 million people, by September, in order to create herd immunity by November.