Week 40 begins in Karachi, where the vaccine is about to arrive

 Edited BY

G P Kennedy

Tassy - Karachi, Pakistan

We started the week by traveling a couple of hours outside Karachi to Hawke’s Bay armed with sandwiches, snacks, and drinks and spent a marvelous day at the beach. 

Karachi is a coastal and port city of Pakistan and situated at the top of the Arabian Sea. The weather in Karachi is the best at this time of the year so this is the time to do outdoor activities. 

It was 20c with a lot of sunshine and being a weekday there was hardly anyone there.

Every time I go to the beaches of Karachi I wonder why we don’t go often enough. It was so peaceful and picturesque. 

 The roads to get to Hawke’s Bay however are dismal with potholes and heavy traffic of container and regular trucks, rickshaws, and motorcycles. Although the beaches are only 20 kilometers outside Karachi it can take up to two hours at times to get there. 

 We stayed till after sunset and by the time we got home late at night I felt refreshed almost like I had a mini holiday.  

The week went by pretty fast, as it has been busy at home with both my children visiting us from out of town. 

 We tried to spend time together as a family, cooking meals, watching movies together, and spending time with my parents and mother in law. 

 Restaurants in Karachi have opened for outdoor seating so we ate out in some of our favorite restaurants. The change was refreshing, and I felt the excitement of a young child getting a treat.

As it is winter time and we are undergoing a peak in the pandemic, a few friends have been losing parents to the virus and other illnesses over these past few weeks. 

 No funeral services are taking place for anyone outside the immediate family of the bereaved, so this week I visited two friends to offer my condolences. 

 I also spent a number of hours at the hospital, conducting various medical checkups for myself and for my daughter who is visiting. 

 I feel like I have been exposed to quite a few people this week. Although I have been extra careful wearing two layers of masks and sanitizing my hands regularly, I can’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable.

Pakistan`s government has finally announced it’s planning on ordering the Oxford Astra Zeneca and the Chinese Sinopharm vaccines. 

 They haven’t placed the order as yet so it is unlikely that the vaccine will arrive here until after the end of quarter 1. 

 Vaccinating the entire population will be a mammoth task, and nothing has been announced as to how this will be done. 

 In the meanwhile, China has gifted 500,000 doses of the vaccine as a goodwill gesture to Pakistan. China’s generosity has been prevalent since the start of the pandemic, as they also provided us with ventilators and protective gear. 

 Vaccination drives may have begun in many countries across the world for the elderly and front-line health workers, but here sadly I have no idea when and how we will get vaccinated.