KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Thursday directed the finance department to withhold from July the salaries of government officials refusing to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The move to block the compensation is aimed at overcoming vaccine hesitancy and encourage a return to normal. The measure, he said, would only apply so long as the officials did not get vaccinated.
Presiding over a meeting of the provincial coronavirus task force, the chief minister directed the health department to install 300 basic health units and vaccination points across the province, giving the target of 30,000 inoculations a day.
He further handed a target of 60,000 inoculations a day to mobile vaccination teams and a target of 10,000 shots per day to private hospitals.
The development comes as confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Sindh climbed to 320,488 after 1,041 new infections were registered in the last 24 hours. After testing 15,008 samples, the authorities received back a scaled-down positivity ratio of 6.94 percent.
The province also reported 22 deaths, raising the toll to 5,073, while the recoveries rose by 1,238 to 290,640.
Following the meeting, the health department announced that thus far some 1.5 million people had received at least one dose of the vaccine across the province, with 429,000 people have been completely vaccinated.
It also informed the body that 78,799 people had been administered vaccines in the previous 24 hours.
Briefing the meeting, an official said that about 26,812 people coming to the province were tested out of which 55 were positive. He further apprised that on May 29, four people were diagnosed with the Indian variant of the disease and were kept in isolation.
The four patients, he revealed, also came in contact with 14 other people who were also being tested for the variant.
Separately, Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani said that the provincial task force on Covid-19 had discussed easing coronavirus restrictions gradually, as the number daily cases of infections appears to be on the decline in the province.
Addressing traders at the Karachi Chambers of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Ghani said the provincial task force had hinted at curbing restrictions in its meeting today, adding that “we are moving towards reopening [of businesses] and consultations are underway in this regard.”
The minister said the restrictions would be lifted gradually and in phases.
“We realised that the lockdown and restrictions on businesses caused problems for the traders. It was an unpopular decision, and the PM was also against the lockdown initially, but this time he also supported it,” he said.
The provincial minister said it was also a fact that restrictions coupled with strictness had resulted in the downward trend of Covid-19 cases.
He assured that representatives of the business community, particularly those from the KCCI, would be invited to upcoming meetings of the provincial task force.
He said it was feared that Covid-19 cases would spike quickly after Eidul Fitr, hence the provincial had decided to extend the lockdown for 15 days to contain the impending spread of the disease.
He said, however, that this year Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab had reported more cases of Covid-19 than Sindh.
