COVID-19: Pakistan starts registration for vaccine of citizens aged 65 and over

Islamabad: The federal government has announced it will now register citizens aged 65 and above for the next phase of the COVID-19 vaccine drive across the country.

Earlier, from Feb 3 to Feb 15, frontline health workers were registered.

Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiative Asad Umar in a tweet Monday announced registration is open to all citizens aged 65 and above across the country.

“Pleased to announce that registration for getting COVID vaccine is now open for all citizens 65 and above,” said the minister who is also in charge of the body spearheading the country’s fight against coronavirus.

Umar said that those willing to get themselves vaccinated can send their Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) number to 1166. “Inshallah vaccination for this age group will start in March,” said Umar.

Special assistant to the PM on Health, Dr Faisal Sultan also shared the news with the public on his twitter handle asking the people to send SMS to the given number. In response you will be communicated the vaccination centre and appointment date, once the vaccine arrives” he further said.

Punjab Education Minister Murad Raas has gone into quarantine after testing positive. The minister in a tweet on Monday announced he was diagnosed with coronavirus and cautioned all those who had been in contact with him recently to go for the test.

“I have tested positive for COVID 19. I would like the people that have come in contact with me in the past few days during meetings to get tested. May Allah protect all of you,” said Raas in his tweet.

Pakistan on Monday reported 26 deaths in a period of twenty-four hours registering a total of 12,333 fatalities so far. Likewise, with 1,084 new cases of COVID-19 in the same period, the country’s total count of COVID-19 cases has surged to 564.077.

According to the National Command & Operation Centre (NCOC) still there are 1,680 critical cases of COVID-19 in the country.

However, according to the NCOC, the number of active cases have drastically reduced in the country as in December 2020, they were more than 50,000 but they gradually started decreasing the following month and came down to 25,47, almost 50pc by Monday.

This is the second time that active cases have been on the decline, as earlier the number had started dropping during the first wave of COVID-19 after crossing the 50,000 mark in June 2020.

The number of active cases have kept decreasing the following months and finally reached below 6,000 in September. However, it again began to rise and reached 11,190 on Oct 27 and 30,362 on Nov 18, forcing the government to officially announce the beginning of the second wave of the pandemic.