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Pakistan hit a target on Tuesday to vaccinate one million people a day against Covid-19, making strides in its inoculation campaign just weeks away from a deadline for workers in public-facing roles to obtain vaccination certificates, Reuters reports.
The government announced last week that from the end of this month that workers in schools, shopping malls and hospitality businesses, and the transport and air travel industries would be barred from entering public offices unless they had a certificate.
Happy to report that the target we had set for 1 million vaccinations in a day was crossed yesterday with 10 lakh 72 thousand vaccinations. All federating entities contributed with punjab, sind, kp and Islamabad all doing record numbers. Amazing performance by all involved
Islamabad has become the first city in Pak with a population of 1 million or more to get 50% of its eligible population vaccinated with at least one dose. Peshawar and pindi 35%, faislabad 28%, lahore/gujranwala /sialkot/sargodha 27%, karachi 26%, hyderabad 25%.
In case you missed it yesterday, this was a thought-provoking opinion piece from Oxford professor Melinda Mills, a member of SPI-B, the UK’s independent behavioural science advisory group.
She argues that there is a risk that a mandatory Covid pass will be seen as coercive, fuelling greater mistrust around vaccines. Requiring an ID card or passport to enter a football match or nightclub could fuel suspicion for those against the use of Covid certification, she writes.
Related: Covid passports could work – but coercion is doomed to fail | Melinda Mills