By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Authorities on Thursday announced strict restrictions on non-vaccinated people in the country, including a ban on boarding domestic and international flights. Non-vaccinated people will also not be allowed into educational institutions, shopping malls, or restaurants as of Friday, said the National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), the country’s anti-virus task force, urging people to get vaccinated before the Friday deadline.
On Tuesday, the NCOC relaxed restrictions in the eight most-vaccinated cities, namely Quetta, Peshawar, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Mirpur, Muzaffarabad, Gilgit, and Skardu. Asad Umar, who heads the nation’s Covid-19 response, said in a separate statement that the only way to overcome the coronavirus pandemic was to “get a high percentage of citizens vaccinated.”
“Therefore, as part of the strategy to reward citizens and cities which vaccinate, there will be higher restrictions on cities with low level of vaccination & on citizens who are not vaccinated,” he added.
Umar also announced that children older than 12 would be eligible for vaccination and that an initiative would be launched to administer jabs in schools. Pakistan has expedited its inoculation drive in recent weeks, with over 80 million vaccine doses given to date and nearly one million shots in the last 24 hours. Over 27.4 million people have been fully vaccinated so far, according to Health Ministry data, while the country recorded 1,742 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours, raising the total to 1.24 million.
According to NCOC, the national tally of Covid-19 active cases on Thursday was recorded 47,832 with 1,742 more people tested positive for the deadly virus and 2,377 people recovered from the disease during the last 24 hours. Thirty-nine corona patients died during past 24 hours, 32 of whom were under treatment in different hospitals and seven of them perished in their respective quarantines or homes, according to the latest update issued by the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC).
