Red-listing

Come Friday and Pakistanis will not be able to travel to the UK – well, with a meager exception of those who are British or Irish nationals and those who have residence rights in the kingdom. It’s because the UK has placed Pakistan on its red list of countries which, it believes, are not doing enough to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Even those in the exception category must quarantine in a government-approved hotel for 10 days on landing in Britain. The red list carries 35 countries, mostly from Africa and South America, and will have Bangladesh, Kenya, the Philippines as well as Pakistan as new entrants on coming Friday.

To Asad Umar – the federal minister who is also heading the Covid nerve centre, NCOC – the decision to red-list Pakistan has to do with Britain’s foreign policy rather than science and statistics. Umar has shared a letter written by British MP Naz Shah to British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in support of his claim. Through the letter written on March 30, prior to the announcement of the entry ban, the MP, who has a large Pakistani diaspora within her constituency, has questioned the foreign secretary on why countries like France, Germany and India which have substantially higher numbers of infections per 100,000 have evaded the red-list. “… I am writing to simply ask, what scientific data is any decision being led by," Shah writes.

Foreign policy may have been one – or the only – reason behind many countries avoiding the red list and many others making it. But do we merit avoiding the red-list if it is based actually based on statistics – irrespective of what treatment India, or any other country, merits? In fact, we must admit our lack of planning for vaccination amid gross violation of the prescribed SOPs. We have earmarked very little – just $150 million – for vaccine procurement, and are mainly relying on the vaccine gift from China and import by the private sector. We have yet to even complete the vaccination target for the most at-risk populations in the country.

The federal government must devise a roadmap to a vaccinated nation as early as possible otherwise many more countries may come up with similar red lists.