Govt restricts movement of unvaccinated residents
Unvaccinated people will not be allowed to enter public offices, schools, restaurants, transport and shopping malls. The vaccination certificates will also be required for all air passengers
Pakistan is to ban staff from entering public offices, schools, restaurants, transport and shopping malls without vaccination certificates, officials said on Thursday, despite only 2.7% of the population having had the full two COVID-19 vaccine shots.
The certificate will also be required for all air passengers and crew, said Asad Umar, who heads Nationalcommandandoperationscentre(ncoc), a body that oversees the pandemic response.
Out of a population of 220 million, more than 27.8 million have received one vaccine shot, but only 5.9 million have been fully vaccinated, according to the NCOC.
It said Pakistan registered 4,497 new cases and 76 deaths in the last 24 hours, with more than 3,000 people in critical condition. So far 23,209 people have died of COVID-19 in Pakistan.
Umar said the certificate would be required for air travel and school staff from Aug.1 and from the end of August for employees of malls, restaurants, public transport and public sector offices.
Students aged above 18 will also be required to be vaccinated. “If you’re not vaccinated you can’t go to teach at schools and colleges from Aug.1,” Umar said.
“We can’t put our children’s lives at risk just because that you’re not ready to get the vaccine.”
Pakistan has seen coronavirus infections soar, dominated by Delta variant, and its poor health infrastructure is under extreme pressure.
The national positive test rate for COVID-19 stands at 7.53%, according to the NCOC. The rate in the southern port city of Karachi touched 23% in recent weeks.
After a sluggish start, the government ramped up its national vaccination drive, especially in the heartland Punjab province, with 850,000 doses administered on Wednesday across the country.
Umar said the target is to touch one million doses a day.
Pakistan has largely relied on Chinese vaccines. Other vaccines, including Astrazeneca, Pfizer and Moderna, have arrived in donations through WHO’S Covax sharing programme for poor countries.
As part of that, the United States on Thursday donated three million Moderna doses, on top of 2.5 million given earlier, a US embassy statement said.
During the last 24 hours most of the deaths had occurred in Sindh followed by the Punjab. Out of the total 76 deaths that occurred during last 24 hours, 37 of the deceased had died on ventilators during their treatment.
The maximum ventilators were occupied in four major areas including Karachi 17%, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) 42%, Peshawar 19% and Lahore 20%.
The maximum Oxygen beds (alternate oxygen providing facility other than ventilator administered as per medical requirement of COVID patient) were also occupied in four major areas of Muzafarabad 28%, Gilgit Baltistan 36%, Islamabad 31% and Karachi 54%.
Around 301 ventilators were occupied elsewhere in the country while no COVID-19 affected person was on ventilator in Balochistan.
Some 59,707 tests were conducted across the country on Wednesday, including 20,438 in Sindh, 17,667 in Punjab, 11,686 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 4,622 in Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), 3393 in Balochistan, 813 in GB, and 1088 in AJK.
Around 937,354 people have recovered from the disease so far across Pakistan making it a significant count.
Since the pandemic outbreak, a total of 1,020,324 cases were detected that also included the perished, recovered and under treatment COVID-19 patients so far, including AJK 23,631, Balochistan 30,019, GB 7,935, ICT 86,602, KP 142,799, Punjab 354,904 and Sindh 374,434.
About 23,209 deaths were recorded in country since the eruption of the contagion. Around 5,903 have perished in Sindh, out of which 40 died in hospital and 03 out of hospital on 28 July.
Although more than four billion doses of anti-coronavirus vaccines have been administered around the world, poorer countries are still struggling to secure precious shots despite recent donations.
At least 4,014,302,550 doses had been injected into people’s arms by 1100 GMT on Thursday, according to a tally based on official sources.