COVID: Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to block sim cards of unvaccinated people

Pakistan’s one of the four provinces, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP or KPK) government has announced that it would start blocking the sim cards of people not vaccinated against COVID-19 in five districts of the Peshawar division. ANI reported citing another media report, the state government has announced the deadline for people to get inoculated against Coronavirus till August 31. Reportedly, the KP government has asked the residents of Peshawar, Mohmand, Khyber, Charsadda and Nowshera districts to receive the jabs as the deadline is closing in.

"We are starting a door-to-door Covid-19 vaccination drive in Peshawar division today (Saturday). The mobile SIMs of those, who fail to receive the vaccine jabs by Aug 31, will be blocked," Commissioner of the Peshawar division Riaz Khan Mehsud said as per ANI.

“The district administrations will ensure the enforcement of Covid-19 SOPs, including the use of face mask, adherence to social and distancing rules, and hand hygiene by the people, to prevent the spread of the virus," he added. Reportedly, Peshawar has a 12.6 per cent positivity rate of COVID-19 cases while Nowshera and Charsadda have less than 5 per cent. However, officials claim that the people of the said districts are highly mobile.

Pakistan reports 3,842 new COVID cases

Meanwhile, on August 21, Pakistan reported 3,842 fresh COVID-19 cases along with 75 deaths taking the total death toll of the country due to coronavirus infection to 24,923. Till now, as per ANI, Pakistan has a cumulative caseload of more than 11 lakh positive cases and the overall recoveries have surged to 10,09,555. Reportedly, the National Command and Operation Centre has stated that as many as 53,527 tests were conducted while the positivity ratio remained 7.1 per cent. 

In the last 24 hours, as per reports, the Punjab province has registered 1,286 which has upped from 1,080 a day earlier. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has detected 653 new cases of COVID-19 taking the total infection tally to 156,365. It has also confirmed 22 more deaths and the total number of people who succumbed to coronavirus infection in KP has now mounted to 4,772. ANI also stated that Sindh has registered 1,332 coronavirus infections and 24 deaths during the last 24 hours.

(IMAGE: Unsplash/Representative)