ISLAMABAD: On Tuesday, the Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar announced that the government has given a green signal to providing coronavirus vaccines to people aged above 40 via walk-in from 12th May (Wednesday). The PTI lawmaker notified the public regarding the matter via his Twitter handle a few hours ago.

Umar, who also heads the National Command and Operations Center (NCOC), tweeted:

Starting tomorrow the 12th of May all 40 plus who have registered will be able to walk into any vaccination center of their choice and get vaccinated. Please note that vaccination centers are open and will only be closing for two days on Eid.

The minister while explaining the government's phase-wise strategy to vaccinate the public based on age, wrote:

Reason why we are opening vaccination based on age in descending order is due to finite availability of vaccines globally, as well as vaccination capacity in the country. Both supplies of vaccines and vaccination capacity are continuously increasing with concerted efforts.

He also provided comprehensive data relating the Covid mortality rate of Pakistan with the age of the individuals. He tweeted:

Therefore it is vital that vaccination is concentrated on the most vulnerable segments of the population. The risk of mortality due to covid rises sharply with age. In Pakistan the case fatality rate based on cumulative data a strong linkage in our country also.

Breaking down the numbers, the federal minister further wrote:

Mortality percentage which has been less than 1% for people under 40, rises to 1.8% for 41-50, 3.8% for 51-60, 7.2% for 61-70, 11.1% for 71-80 and over 15% for those above 80. Only 7% of Pakistan's population is above the age of 60 and 53% of all covid deaths have been in this age bracket. Conversely, 77% of Pakistan's population is below the age of 40 and only 9% of total covid deaths in Pakistan have been in this age bracket.