Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar’s ringing the milestone bell to mark 100 million fully vaccinated Pakistanis has all the bearings of a divine miracle. To expect a country like ours, having gained widespread notoriety for vaccine resistance (thanks to our unwinnable war against the crippling poliovirus) in the same lane as the rest of the developed world, marking a turning point in the pandemic times could only be possible due to the unheralded–and quite unlikely–success of the NCOC. We might be well on our way back to normalcy with the positivity ratio down to two per cent and the government showing a resolve to administer the immunity shots to all eligible citizens in a very near future.
Managing an outbreak, as is evident from the tragedy spanning over the three years, is never an easy job, let alone for a third-world country with an exasperated healthcare system and a general tendency to flout rules and guidelines. But that the national command persisted and kept paddling through various levels of lockdowns all the while promoting vaccines and enforcing SOPs helped us avert the disastrous plunge, by as much as an inch at times. It is largely the adherence to the vaccine requirements that has allowed the economy to open shop again and quite rightly so, now is the time to invest all energies for its revival.
However, assuming the worst to be over already would be falling short fatally because the need to promote vaccines and invest in their research is greater than ever before. Enjoying the bliss of the COVID pause as we take off our masks and bathe in unfiltered sunlight should not make us forget that the virus can come roaring back any time. Let’s take a moment to feel good about those smiles but while planning for the days to come. After all, a single new variant is all that’s needed to stumble deep down in the dismay of social distancing among other prevention measures: something we have all grown weary of.
