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Salman Masood, Pakistan correspondent for the New York Times (NYT), reported about a major divide in vaccine availability for the rich and the poor people of the country.
He wrote how millions in Pakistan cannot afford the vaccines that are available at private vaccination centers. Here, Masood completely missed out on the part that the government is playing its part in vaccinating the masses in its maximum capacity. That too, for free.
Vaccination for the elderly started as soon as the Chinese Sinopharm arrived here. New mass vaccination centers are being set up in different parts of the country to facilitate a large chunk of people in one day. All this to vaccinate as many people as early as possible.
According to NCOC’s daily reports, around 1-2 million people get their jabs every day.
One of the citizens of Pakistan shared his experience of getting the COVID shots. He wrote how he got called for vaccination within two weeks of the COVID registration. The process was swift and he got free easily, without much hassle at a government facility.
As per the article, the private vaccine is unaffordable for people of the lower-income strata. However, the free government vaccine is available for everyone, so like, what’s the issue here?
And the article says that rich people are getting private vaccines without having to wait in line…
Well as far as the waiting part goes, you gotta hustle to get free stuff. One should focus on the bigger goal here, i.e., getting vaccinated, that too, for free.
There’s no harm in waiting in queues for the pursuit of the COVID jab.
After this article on vaccine availability in Pakistan, people are calling out to NYT to not misrepresent facts.
Tania Aidrus, who is heading PM Imran’s “Digital Pakistan” initiative pointed out how only 1% of the total population got the private jab; telling NYT to do a little more background research before putting out such articles.
Some of them even called out the NYT editors for complacency on their behalf.
Others uttered that getting away with literally anything in the age of social media is an impossibility now. Reporters, nowadays, have a huge responsibility of doing double checks.
However, there were also those who supported the writer’s narrative and said “there’s a definite sense of inequity between those who live in the larger cities and those in the rural areas.”
What do you think of NYT’s report? Let us know in the comments.
