ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will ban air travel for anyone without a COVID-19 vaccine certificate from Aug.1 and will require all public sector workers to get vaccinated by Aug. 31, the government announced on Thursday along with a host of other restrictions.
From Aug. 1, unvaccinated people will no longer be allowed to enter government offices, schools, restaurants and shopping malls, said Asad Umar, who heads National Command and Operations Center (NCOC), a military-run body that oversees the pandemic response, at a joint news conference with the health minister in Islamabad.
Teachers and students above 18, public transport and retail staff will also be required to get vaccinated by the enad of August, they said.
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 stands at 7.53 percent, according to the NCOC. The rate in the southern port city of Karachi touched 23 percent in recent weeks.
“If you’re not vaccinated you can’t go to teach at schools and colleges from August 1,” Umar said.
“We can’t put our children’s lives at risk just because that you’re not ready to get the vaccine.”
The NCOC has said the Delta, Beta, and Alpha variants of the virus have all been detected in Pakistan since May.
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.
According to the NCOC, over 27.8 million have now received at least one vaccine shot, while only 5.9 million have been fully vaccinated out of a population of 220 million.
It said Pakistan registered 4,497 new cases and 76 deaths in the last 24 hours, with over 3,000 people in critical condition. So far 23,209 people have died of COVID-19 in Pakistan.
Pakistan to ban public sector, education, malls, air travel for unvaccinated
https://arab.news/nq7mp
Pakistan to ban public sector, education, malls, air travel for unvaccinated
- From Aug. 1, unvaccinated people will no longer be allowed to enter government offices, schools, restaurants and shopping malls
- Over 27.8 million Pakistanis have now received at least one vaccine shot, while only 5.9 million have been fully vaccinated
Sindh assembly passes resolution rejecting move to separate Karachi
- Chief Minister Shah cites constitutional safeguards against altering provincial boundaries
- Calls to separate Karachi intensified amid governance concerns after a mall fire last month
ISLAMABAD: The provincial assembly of Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Saturday passed a resolution rejecting any move to separate Karachi, declaring its territorial integrity “non-negotiable” amid political calls to carve the city out as a separate administrative unit.
The resolution comes after fresh demands by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and other voices to grant Karachi provincial or federal status following governance challenges highlighted by the deadly Gul Plaza fire earlier this year that killed 80 people.
Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and most densely populated city, is the country’s main commercial hub and contributes a significant share to the national economy.
Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah tabled the resolution in the assembly, condemning what he described as “divisive statements” about breaking up Sindh or detaching Karachi.
“The province that played a foundational role in the creation of Pakistan cannot allow the fragmentation of its own historic homeland,” Shah told lawmakers, adding that any attempt to divide Sindh or separate Karachi was contrary to the constitution and democratic norms.
Citing Article 239 of Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution, which requires the consent of not less than two-thirds of a provincial assembly to alter provincial boundaries, Shah said any such move could not proceed without the assembly’s approval.
“If any such move is attempted, it is this Assembly — by a two-thirds majority — that will decide,” he said.
The resolution reaffirmed that Karachi would “forever remain” an integral part of Sindh and directed the provincial government to forward the motion to the president, prime minister and parliamentary leadership for record.
Shah said the resolution was not aimed at anyone but referred to the shifting stance of MQM in the debate while warning that opposing the resolution would amount to supporting the division of Sindh.
The party has been a major political force in Karachi with a significant vote bank in the city and has frequently criticized Shah’s provincial administration over its governance of Pakistan’s largest metropolis.
Taha Ahmed Khan, a senior MQM leader, acknowledged that his party had “presented its demand openly on television channels with clear and logical arguments” to separate Karachi from Sindh.
“It is a purely constitutional debate,” he told Arab News by phone. “We are aware that the Pakistan Peoples Party, which rules the province, holds a two-thirds majority and that a new province cannot be created at this stage. But that does not mean new provinces can never be formed.”
Calls to alter Karachi’s status have periodically surfaced amid longstanding complaints over governance, infrastructure and administrative control in the megacity, though no formal proposal to redraw provincial boundaries has been introduced at the federal level.
