Pakistan will ban air travel for anyone without a COVID-19 vaccine certificate from August 1 and will require all public sector workers to get vaccinated by Aug. 31.
From Aug. 1, unvaccinated people will no longer be allowed to enter government offices, schools, restaurants, and shopping malls, said Asad Umar, a minister in Prime Minister Imran Khan’s cabinet, who also heads National Command and Operations Centre (NCOC) to oversees the pandemic response.
All teachers and students over 18 years of age, public transport, and retail staff will also be required to get vaccinated by the end of August.
In recent weeks, Pakistan has seen coronavirus infections soar, dominated by the Delta variant.
The national positive test rate for COVID stands at 7.53%, according to the NCOC. The rate in the southern port city of Karachi touched 23% 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.
The Imran Khan government has stepped up a national vaccination drive, especially in the Punjab province, with 850,000 doses administered on Wednesday across the country.
The next target, according to Umar, is to administer one million doses a day.
The NCOC figures show that 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.
Pakistan registered 4,497 new cases and 76 deaths in the last 24 hours, with over 3,000 people in critical condition. Pakistan has lost 23,209 people to the pandemic.
