KARACHI: Shopkeepers and restaurant staff in southern Pakistan will have to get vaccinated against COVID-19 for their businesses to reopen, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah announced on Sunday, as the province will ease coronavirus restrictions from Monday.
The announcement came as the chief minister launched a new vaccination center in the provincial capital, Karachi, to vaccinate an additional 20,000 people daily and ramp up the vaccination drive as only 1.3 million people out of the province's population of 47 million have been vaccinated so far.
From Monday, shopkeepers in Sindh will be allowed to open their businesses from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m., instead of 6 p.m., while restaurants will be able to offer outdoor dining until 12 p.m.
“This has been allowed on the condition that the shopkeeper and restaurant owners would vaccinate their staff members within the next two weeks,” Shah said, adding that after two weeks authorities will start randomly checking if their staff have vaccination certificates.
Obligatory vaccination has already been announced for Sindh officials, after Shah directed the provincial finance ministry last week to block from the next month the salaries of public servants who refuse to take coronavirus jabs.
COVID-19 was initially under control in Sindh during the third wave of the pandemic, though the number of infections started mounting after the Eid Al-Fitr celebrations last month, prompting tighter virus curbs. The positivity ratio remains high in densely populated Karachi, although it has dropped from 12.45 on June 1, to 8.25 percent on Saturday.
