The UK finally took Pakistan off the red list after months of supervising the Covid-19 situation and assessing the efficacy of the anti-Covid strategy that was implemented by PM Imran Khan amidst the fourth wave. After weeks of lockdown, our national positivity ratio is below 5 percent and it seems as though recoveries are outnumbering newer cases. As we celebrate this good news, we must be careful about maintaining this progress. Should matters get worse, even marginally, the international community will not hesitate to reinstate restrictions, as has been evidenced by past events.
Pakistan, which has a better pandemic dealing record, had earnestly pleaded with British authorities to focus on individual travellers’ vaccination record, rather than generalising it on unfounded statistics. It is a welcome development that the plea got an attentive hearing, and Pakistanis are off the hook.British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, while announcing a new policy, said that fully vaccinated travellers from non-Red list countries can simply board the flight; and also informed that PCR test is being replaced with a cheaper lateral flow. It has come as a sigh of relief for eight countries and territories. Likewise, passengers considered unvaccinated may be able to end quarantine early if they pay for a private Covid-19 test through the Test to Release scheme. It is a leap forward approach keeping in view the aspect that the pestering pandemic is a new-norm, and one has to live with it.
While more than 225,000 Pakistanis hold a British passport, apart from British citizens of Pakistani descent, this undoing of the ban is highly appreciated. This is why it necessitated PM Imran Khan to personally speak to his counterpart, and apprise him of its adverse impact. While recognising the efforts of Pakistan government officials, here is a word of thanks for British authorities who upheld participatory democratic values by introspecting it in all sincerity. One hopes this upsurge in travel and tourism will help browbeat recessionary tendencies.
There are certainly aspects of coronavirus management, especially by developed nations towards those less so, that smack of discrimination. The European Union, for example, needs to review its policy of not accepting the Chinese vaccines as valid proof of immunity. The only exception thus far is Sinovac, but that too is only accepted by eight EU/Schengen countries. This is despite the fact that WHO several months ago said that any Covid-19 vaccines it had authorised for emergency use — which included the Chinese vaccines — should be recognised by countries that were opening up their borders to inoculated visitors. The global health authority correctly said that discriminating against certain vaccines would “create a two-tier system”. Such an approach only exacerbates the inequities in the handling of the pandemic.
Shafaqna Pakistan
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